No. 4.] AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH. 263 



Comparative Mortality of Men in Different Occiqmtions in England.* 



The foregoing table may be read as follows : assuming the 

 mortality of clergymen as a standard, that of farmers is 

 fourteen per cent greater, that of lawyers fifty-two per cent 

 greater, etc. 



Another circumstance conducive to the health and long 

 life of the farmer is the fact that, generally speaking, his 

 food supply is more liberal and more varied than that of 

 persons following other occupations, since he is the pro- 

 ducer of the sustenance of the people, and therefore of his 

 own. A good and sufficient food supply is essential to the 

 well-being of every one. It is not only necessary that the 

 supply of food should be abundant, but also that it should 

 be well selected, sufficiently variable in character and of 

 good quality ; and these conditions are usually found to 

 exist to a greater degree in the house of a farmer than 

 elsewhere. 



Again, the inherent character of the occupation makes it 

 a promoter of health and longevity. The succession of 

 crops, depending as they do upon the regularly recurring 

 seasons of the year, occurs with harmonious regularity. If 

 there is anything poetic, anything uplifting, anything tran- 

 quillizing in nature, who is the first and the most likely to 

 receive these inspiring impressions if not the agriculturist ? 



* From paper by Dr. Wm. Ogle, at International Congress of Hygiene at London, 

 in 1891 ; section on demography. 



