17 



It may be that the peasants are driven to careful husbandry 

 by poverty, and that they work with antiquated tools. At 

 all events, they give a lesson to us who have money and fine 

 implements. 



It is said there is no profit in Massachusetts agriculture, 

 and that our farmers grow each year poorer. Whether this 

 be true or not, certain it is that we must have a large body of 

 tillers of the soil, or be doomed to dwindle and become ex- 

 tinct. The waste in mankind is made good and the increase 

 furnished chiefly by the rural population. There is no occu- 

 pation like farming to make red blood. But the farming 

 people must live the lifeiof their trade. And here we strike 

 another of our troubles. Among our country people, the men, 

 though spare, are commonly strong and sinewy. Not so the 

 women, who, however pretty and intelligent, are apt to lack 

 vitality. During our long, cold winter and spring, farmers 

 are forced to be out of doors, while the women can stay, and 

 do stay, in the house. Staying in the house was not so bad 

 in the days of big open chimneys ; but in these days of iron 

 stoves it is very bad. The hotter the stove gets, the worse 

 the air becomes ; the worse the air becomes the less the 

 blood circulates, so that by spring the temperature of 

 the room is raised to eighty or eighty-five degrees. 

 You can easily convince yourselves of this by going next 

 winter to the committee-rooms of the State House. A large 

 proportion of the representatives are from the rural districts. 

 You will find those. rooms heated to 80 or 85 degrees, and if 

 you open a window some honorable member will jump as if 

 he were shot, and exclaim, in tones of fear, that there is a 

 draught ! It is a curious fact, of which you also may convince 

 yourselves, that of a winter's day, you may sec a greater pro- 

 portion of fat, rosy little children on Beacon street, than you 



