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root and thrive without land. He writes bis history upon the field. 

 How many ties, how many resources, ho has; his friendships with his 

 cattle, his team, his dog, his trees, the satisfaction iii his growing crops, 

 in his improved fields ; his intimacy with nature, willi bird and beast, 

 and with the quickening elemental forces; his co-operations with the 

 cloud, the sun, the seasons, heat, wind, rain and frost. Nothing will 

 take the social distempers, which the city and artificial life breed, out of 

 a man, like direct and loving contact with the soil, it draws out the 

 poison, It humbles him, teaches him patience and reverence, and 

 restores the proper tone to his system." 



It is the out-door life, the keen observation of the every-day events of 

 the farm and the forest, the watchful eye and ear, the minute observa- 

 tion of birds and their habits, of the squirrel, the rabbit, the weasel, the 

 ferret, the fox, the muskrat, and the woodchuck, of the multitudes of 

 different kinds of insects both useful and injurious, that have given us 

 such books as have been written by Gilbert White and Thoreau and John 

 Burroughs and Bradford Torrey and Seton Thompson, — books that 

 every observing farmer ought to have in his library to read in the long 

 winter evenings. 



But there are exceptions to every rule. I have said that the farmer 

 is, with one exception, the longest-lived man. Were it not for certain 

 circumstances he would lead the list. How then may his condition be 

 improved ? I shall now direct your attention to a few of the points 

 wherein improvement may be made. 



And first, since 1 have spoken of the value of fresh out-door air in 

 promoting health and long life, I will add to this that fresh in-door air 

 is quite as important to those who live in the house, and especially is 

 this true of the sleeping-rooms. Too often does it happen in the modern 

 farm-house that the sleeping-rooms are too small, and are also wanting 

 in the proper means of ventilation. Ventilation means the change of 

 the foul air of the in-door apartment, and its renewal by fresh air from 

 out doors. This cannot be done in a sleeping-room in which the win- 

 dows and doors are tightly closed, unless special provision is made for 

 renewing the air by means of an out-door opening, such as may be fur- 

 nished by an open fire-place or grate ; and even a grate is not a suffi- 

 cient means of ventilation, so long as there is no fire in it. A man who 

 lives in this manner year after year, breathing the foul air of a tightly 

 closed sleeping-room, cannot continue in good health. The actual cost 

 of maintaining a house with good ventilation is somewhat greater than 

 that of a house with no ventilation at all, since a greater amount of fuel 

 is required for a well-ventilated house than is necessary for a house 

 With no ventilation. 



The Water Supply. — If pure air is essential to good health sojs pure 

 water From my own observation of very many farms which I have 

 visited and inspected, I should say that the water supply of farms is, 

 on the whole, better than that of thickly settled villages injwhich the 

 domestic water supply is drawn entirely from private wells. There 

 are, however, abundant instances of badly polluted water supplies 

 among the farms of Massachusetts, and when such farms arc also 



