264 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



The rush, the hurry, the anxiety, the worry of the business 

 man, the financier, the politician, the soul and body de- 

 stroying conditions which surround the devotee of fashion, 

 do not affect him. Undoubtedly he has his trials and per- 

 plexities, but, all combined, they cannot counterbalance or 

 offset the general good influence of his occupation. 



The average life of the lawyer, the physician, the me- 

 chanic, the soldier, the laborer, is in either case shorter 

 than that of the farmer. So far as the medical profession 

 is concerned, there is the constant and wearing influence of 

 the sight of human beings suffering with pain and sickness, 

 of witnessing death-bed scenes, of broken rest at night and 

 of direct exposure to infectious diseases. I have often been 

 asked the question, " Why do not doctors take or contract 

 contagious diseases ? " I answer that the assumption is en- 

 tirely wrong at the outset. Physicians do take infectious 

 diseases, and die with them in a greater ratio than the gen- 

 eral population, and the same is true of nurses, hospital 

 attendants and all others whose duty it is to wait upon the 

 sick. 



Country life in general is more healthful than city life. 

 The death rate of the country is almost always less than 

 that of the city. It is the constant stream of humanity that 

 is always flowing from the country toward the city that 

 keeps the city alive. The vigorous health of those who 

 dwell upon the farms is in strong contrast to the weaklings 

 who are produced by thousands amidst the densely crowded 

 quarters of our large cities. 



It was the Germans, the Goths and the Vandals, fresh 

 from the fields and farms of northern and middle Europe, 

 that finally prevailed over the Roman people, who had be- 

 come enervated by the licentiousness, the excesses and 

 debasing habits of city life. John Burroughs says, in con- 

 trasting the farmer and the dweller in cities: "A nation 

 always begins to rot first in its great cities, is, indeed, 

 always rotting there, and is saved only by the antiseptic 

 virtues of fresh supplies of country blood ; " and again he 

 says : '* The farmer has the most sane and natural occupa- 

 tion, and ought to find life sweeter, if less highly seasoned, 

 than any other. He alone, strictly speaking, has a home. 



