214 AMERICAN FARMS. 



could take no better course to defeat man's progress and 

 subdue the earth to himself, than by depriving one after 

 another of intimate contact with their mother, the earth. 



If it be health that is desired for the people (taking 

 another view of the subject), compare a procession of 

 cotton operatives pouring out of a cotton-mill in Law- 

 rence and Lowell, with an equal number of farmers' sons 

 and daughters as they are found in our country, and 

 we will see nothing in the former of physical appearance 

 to cause us to wish that the rural classes may become 

 manufacturers. 



In 1886, there was published in Massachusetts an in- 

 teresting collection of facts relative to the average dura- 

 tion of life among the several occupations, covering a 

 period of more than thirty years. The average farmer 

 died at 66 years of age, the judge at 64, lawyers at 56, 

 physicians at 55, sheriffs and policemen at 52, while 

 milliners and factory girls died at 39, clerks and book- 

 keepers at 36, and plumbers and carvers at 35. In 

 the same year (1886), Dr. C. W. Chancoles, in a paper 

 read before the American Public-Health Association, 

 stated that stone-cutters, both in Europe and America, 

 on an average, do not live beyond id years, while knife 

 and file grinders die at 35, edge-tool grinders at 32, razor 

 grinders at 31, and grinders of forks at 29. Of the 100 

 sick, of the various manufacturing industries, the pro- 

 portion of consumptives is quite suggestive : carpenters 

 14, cigarmakers 36, stone-cutters 36, steel grinders 40, 

 brush-makers 49, cotton, hemp, and flax Aveavers 60 ; file- 

 makers 62, needle-makers 70. 



With such facts as these for guidance, both statesmen 

 and people should pause before tempting the young of 

 the rural classes to the manufacturing occupations. A 



