April 2, 1900.] THE TEOPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
683 
adds so much to the pleasure of living in 
this beautiful world of ours. 
It is just 40 years since I liegau 
A farmer's cakebb 
and, although for a time, I took up the 
role first of Colombo merchant, and then 
that of a Rangala planter, the time came 
when I once more returned to my old love, 
— my old profession, in the wilds of Buchan, 
where the East wind blows its best, and the 
cattle, sheep and turnips are imequalled in 
the world. 
I know that the Observer is read regularly 
by farmers from our Eastern Empire, and 
also, of course, by planters who ai"e still in 
the land of sunshine and tom-toms, but who 
intend at some future time, to adopt a 
farmer's life in the old country and in the 
hope that these notes of mine may catch 
their eyes,Iintend giving some plain facts from 
a farmer s, life in Scotland, as seen by one 
who knows life in the East as well as in 
our Australian Colonies, and I trust that 
some of those who can see nothing but drud- 
gery in a farmer's life may learn from my 
experirjnces that there is much of pleasure 
and amusement even in a bucolic existence 
which one can easily assimilate, if not a 
perpetual victim to those gloomy views which 
f:enerally accompany a disordered state of 
he liver. And now having made these re- 
marks by preface, let me commence a des- 
cription of that life which I am leading, 
hoping my remarks may be of some interest 
to those Ceylon men now farming at home, 
and to those planters who, in the near 
futui'e, intend to Vjeat their paper umbrellas 
into scythes, and their pruning knives into 
sheep-shears. 
There are many, especially of late years, 
who have given up country life and gravitated 
to the towns, giving as their reason for so 
doing that the life they had been leading- 
was so deadly dull compared with the 
pleasant and joyful existence to be had in 
the cities. 
But there is another side of the question 
which these renegades from the country 
seem to have overlooked, and I am just the 
one that can point it out to them, for I 
have lived 20 years m various cities in dif- 
ferent parts of the world, and spent nearly 
twice as long a period in country districts, 
at home and abroad. With such practi- 
,cal experience to guide me I have come 
to the conclusion that 
THE ENJOYMENTS OP A TOWN LIFE 
are but small in comparison with the 
disagreeable irksomeness of civilization. 
' To say nothing about the smells, noises, bad 
water, indiiferent gas and a score of 
other unpleasant peculiarities of city life, 
there is tue chronic state of ill-health in the 
children of the town, and the normal con- 
dition of ill-nature peculiar to all house- 
keepers. If a city man is detained later 
than usual at his club, or some other im- 
portant place of resort, the look which he 
i-eceives from his wife on his arrival at home, 
not to speak of her language, distinctly 
.shows an active state of that lady's liver. 
If he is half an hour late for dinner, he is 
greeted with the question: "How do you 
expectj servants to stay if you can't come 
home in proper time ? " Exciting passages 
of tliat sort would never do with me ; I 
would promptly go on strike. What is a 
paltry half hour to me, who was once 
three days' late for my dinner, and then 
had to eat it raw, as I could get no fire 
lighted, owing to everything being soaking 
wet with rain ! 
No, no, the ple;isures of town life are as 
Dead .Sea fruit— so sweet and delicious to the 
eye, so bitter and nauseous to the taste. My 
own school fellows, that I meet, who have 
spent their whole lives in ai city, seem to me 
to have been dead from their' birth, whilst 
those who have been resident in the country 
appear to have been very much alive all the 
time townsfolk never get any exercise 
worth calling by that name, for what they 
have consists principally in driving their 
own trap, or riding on the to^) of a fiery, 
untameable tram car. But ask the jolanters 
of Ceylon or the farmers of Britain how 
they account for their exceptionally good 
health, and they will reply that it is all 
owing to 
THE walking 
they have to do ; for walking heljis the 
general tone and improves the temper. 
People with thick boots, and the sense 
to wear them, generally have even 
tempers. There is nothing like walking 
ill-temper off; never mind what sort the 
weather is, go out and half tire youiself, 
and then hang up your water-proof and you 
will find yoiu'self in a calm, forgiving mood 
unknown to people who stick in the house. 
Don't think I am mad: "Allah created the 
English mad" — but not the Scotch, and 1 
have walked a good many tens- of -thousand 
of miles in my day, and know what I am 
writing about. Of course, we have much to 
growl about, farmers always have. If we 
have not got too much rain we have got too 
little, and if the rain comes just' as we 
would wish it to, instead of being thankful 
for present mercies, we cast our prophetic 
eye into the future and declare that there 
will be a drought or a deluge next month. 
Farmers can never see a blight prospect, 
they are not built that way, and gloom and 
despondency are their portion. Of course, 
there are exceptions to every rule, and I 
claim to be one of the exceptions to this, for 
I do not go about the country with my jaw 
hanging below the lowest button of my 
waistcoat, as t remember some planters 
doing, in the days when coffee leaf-disease 
was rampant. And I know other farmers 
also who are quite content with things as 
they are, although, naturally, we would 
prefer better prices and a more generous 
Government, and these are the sort of agri- 
culturists I would recommend farmers from 
the East to copy. 
There are some people, however, who are 
never content — for example, a neighbour, who 
had been present at a very intellectual 
lecture which was given in our village, 
lately ; when I asked him if he had not en- 
joyed and felt edified by it, replied : — " Weel 
1 dinna ken that, but twa days' rain wid 
hae deen us a hauntle mairguid." 
It has been asserted that the gloom and 
despondency, which is inherent iii most fj^p. 
mers, is caused by the 
