The impression pervades all classes of society that the cultivation of the soil is the most healthful mode of life, and gives the highest promise of a peaceful, quiet, and happy old age. Dwellers amid brick and mortar, looking on from a distance, have visions in which it is a luxury to indulge, of independence, of comfort, of repose, and of overflowing abundance, as inseparable from a farm-house; and under the influence of these, with the bewitching and sweetly sad memories of blossoms and budding trees, of green pastures and waving meadows and birds of spring, of fishing and hunting, of shady woods and cool, clear waters dashing briskly over pebbled bottoms, they pine for the country with deep and abiding longings. It may, therefore, be practically useful to inquire as to the correctness of these views, whether they are not materially modified by incidental circumstances which do not necessarily exist, and if so, what may be the best remedy for their prevention or removal. To do this properly, we must look whole facts full in the face, and take our departure from what is, and not from what we may think ought to be.

Adding to these the number who have “no occupation,” the proportion of farmers to the whole will be considerably less than one farmer to four of all others.

Dr. Kirkbride, of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, in his report to the legislature, says one-seventh of the male patients had no regular occupation at the time of attack, while for 1850 the most numerous class were those who had been in some way engaged in agriculture, either as farmers, farmers’ wives or daughters, This proportion is not invariable, for in 1862 the same gentleman reports that of 8,947 insane there were 297 farmers, 170 of their wives, and 95 of their daughters—a little less than one-seventh of the whole were from the farm. Of the 4,014 patients in the Central Lunatic Asylum of Ohio, as reported to the legislature for 1862, 1,108 were from the farm. The statistics of the insane in Massachusetts show that the largest number of cases were of farmers’ wives.

Nor do farmers live the longest. Travellers and natural philosophers average a greater age. The clergyman, who devotes his life to study and late hours, who spends three-fourths of his existence in-doors, who does not average two hours’ daily exercise in twenty-four, who is compelled to an inactivity of body which would seem enough to undermine any constitution, to say nothing of the many depressing influences connected with his office, in listening to the troubled, in counselling the sick, and in waiting upon the dying and the dead— even he often survives the farmer, who rises with the lark to breathe the pure out-door air, whose undisturbed nights, whose supposed independence of the world tend to health, whose table is thought to be spread every day with the freshest butter from the dairy and the new-laid eggs, with pure, rich milk from the spring-house, all cool and sweet, vegetables just dug from the ground or pulled from the vine, and melons taken from the garden, berries from the bending bushes, and fruits, luscious, perfect, and ripe, from the orchard, within the hour; in short, a class of persons whose whole surroundings are universally believed to be the synonyms of quiet, plenty, and independence, and which would seem to be a full guarantee of a healthful and happy old age, does not attain it as often as some other classes whose habits and modes of life are not, other things being equal, as favorable to longevity. In the light of these statements it is proposed to inquire—

First. Why is the farmer more liable to insanity than the citizen? Second. Why does he not average a longer life?

Incessant thinking on any one subject tends to craze the brain, and it does unhinge the intellect of multitudes, as witness the fate of men of “one idea;” of inventors; of inveterate students of prophecy; of those who abandon themselves to thinking of the loved and lost; of the victims of remorse or mortified pride; or of those who feed on sharp-pointed memories. Learned physicians of all civilized countries agree that, in cases like these, it is best to divert the mind, by travel, to a new class of thoughts, to a greater variety of objects of contemplation. It is known that within a short time the attention of the French government has been officially drawn to the fact that one in ten of the young gentlemen who are educated for the army, in the mathematical department, becomes deranged; this is because the mind will not bear exclusive action on one subject. This is the key to the so frequent cases of insanity and suicide among farmers; their subjects of thought are too few; their life is a ruinous routine; there is a sameness and a tameness about it, a paucity of subjects for contemplation, most dangerous to mental integrity.

It is too much the case with our farming population that they have no breadth of view; they cannot sustain a conversation beyond a few comments on the weather, the crops, the markets, and the neighborhood news. And it is worthy of note that their remarks on these subjects are uniformly of the complaining and uuhopefu' kind, as if their occupation and their thoughts were on the same low and depressing level. This is because the mind is not used enough; is not waked up by a lively interest in a sufficient variety of subjects to promote a healthful tone.

The proper aud the all-powerful remedy against the sad effects of a plodding routine existence is a higher standard of general intelligence and a livelier attention to what is too often derisively styled “ book-farming.” The highest form of human health is found in those wlo exercise the brain and the body in something like equal proportions. If the greater share of the nervous energies is sent out through the muscles, they will be largely, even preternaturally, developed; but then the brain languishes for want of its due amount of aliment, vigorous thought, while that same body, having been unduly worked, wears out before its time and prematurely decays. It is even better for the mind and body both, that if either has the larger share of exercise it should be the brain, for thereby the chances of longer life are increased, since statistics clearly show that, as a general rule, the most intellectual live the longest. Professor Pierce, of Cambridge, after having examined the subject closely in reference to the young gentlemen pursuing their studies at Harvard University, remarks, as the result of his observations, that, "taking classes in the average, those are the first to die who are the dullest and most stupid, while, as a general rule, those who exercise their brains most constantly, thoroughly, and faithfully, are the longest lived.”

The lamented President Felton was accustomed to urge upon the young gentlemen of his classes, with great earnestness, as a means of high health, that they should "use the mind;” use it actively, and on a variety of subjects, so as to avoid any dull routine.

It is an observed fact that many of those sent to penitentiaries for long terms, or for life, become idiotic; but that among the number there is seldom found one who had even small pretensions to a liberal education or to mental culture in any direction. The gifted and unfortunate Mary Queen of Scotts, after lingering eighteen years in prison, came forth to the block with that vigor of mind and clearness of intellect and composure of manner which bespoke a healthful brain. Multitudes of distinguished men have passed a large portion of their lives in prisons, yet maintained their mental integrity, and lived long enough afterwards to accomplish great deeds. Count Confalioneri, having rendered himself obnoxious to the Austrian government, was confined in a dungeon ten feet square for six years, with so dim a light that he could not distinguish the features of the solitary companion of his misfortunes; after which time he remained nine years longer, entirely alone. He writes of himself: “Only one event broke in upon my nine years’ vacancy. One day—it must have been a year or two after my companion left me—my dungeon door was opened, and a voice, I knew not whence, uttered these words:  By order of his Imperial Majesty, I intimate to you that one year ago your wife died.” Then the door was shut. I heard no more. They had but flung this great agony in upon me, and left me alone with it again.” Without a book, without a companion, without any intelligence from the outer world, confined in a dark dungeon, living on the coarsest food, having those inward resources which a superior education gave, he fed upon them, and thus maintained both mental andp bodily health; while the uninstructed farmer, who can feed on the fat of the land, who passes near three-fourths of his existence in the blessed sunlight, greedily drinking in the luscious out-door air in all its purity, with no restraints of bodily liberty, so abandons himself to the dull routine which comprises almost nothing but to work and eat and sleep, often finds in a less time than fifteen years that vigor of mind and health of body are both on the wane. But a better time is coming, through the influence of our glorious public school system, when it shall no longer be considered an all-sufficient qualification for a farmer that he have a vigorous frame and intelligence enough to skillfully wield an ax or turn a furrow or drive a team. Men are already beginning to perceive that encouragingly remunerative farming is the reward of those who have made themselves familiar with the analysis of soils, who have some knowledge of botany and vegetable chemistry, who have given some study to ascertain the surest way of obtaining the best seeds and the best breeds, and who have “method in their” book “madness,” in the selection of cions and grafts and roots and plants. Such men not only make money by farming, but have a positive delight in their labor, and in waiting for results; for one of the sweetest sensations possible to the human mind is the development of useful practical facts as the result of trials and experiments. If the young farmer then begins life with a better literary education, and every farmhouse is regularly visited by some well conducted agricultural periodical, the mental horizon of the hard working tiller of the soil will soon become so extended that a demented farmer will become the rarest of sights. There is another item in reference to the farming population of this country, which certainly adds to the number of its lunatics: it is that grim specter DEBT, which is voluntarily set up in the households of three farmers out of four, whether in the cabin-of the thriftless squatter or in the mansion of the princely planter.  It is generally a very grave mistake, in the hope of making money by the rise of land, to purchase more than can be conveniently paid for on the spot, or more than can be advantageously cultivated with the force at command.  This demon of debt, with its “interest" eating out the farmer’s substance ceaselessly and remorselessly, day and night, summer and winter, in sunshine and in shade, is in multitudes of cases a vain sacrifice to the Moloch of gain, a yawning maelstrom, pitiless and unappeasable; it eats out half the joys of many families by reason of the self-denials, the always losing “make-shifts,” the working to disadvantage and consequent extra labor, with those anxieties and solicitudes which are necessarily imposed, and which, in their turn, induce invitation of mind, irascibility of temper, and that forgetfulness of those domestic amenities which many times convert a trouble into a pleasure and alleviate or take entirely away half the burdens of life. These acerbities of temper grow by what they feed upon, and seldom fail in the end to leave an evil impress on the character of those upon whom the disturbing consciousness of debt presses with the weight of the nether millstone, impelling too often to the razor, the river, or the halter; for it is not an unknown thing, by any means, that the hard working farmer becomes a suicide.  To make this article more specifically practical, the attention of farmers’ families is invited to the chief and direct causes of nine-tenths of the diseases which cloud their happiness, which interfere with their prosperity, and often largely add to discouraging expenditures of the means which it caused so much labor to acquire; and first to

The stomach has two doors, one for the entrance of the food, on the left side, the other for its exit after it has been properly prepared for another process.  As soon as the food is swallowed, it begins to go round and round the stomach, so as to facilitate dissolution, just as the melting of a number of small bits of ice is expedited by being stirred in a glass of water; the food, like the ice, dissolving from without, inwards, until all is a liquid mass.

When food is unnaturally detained in the stomach, it produces wind, eructations, fullness, acidity, or a feeling often described as a “weight,” or “load,” or “heavy.” But nature is never cheated. Her regulations are never infringed with impunity; and although an indigestible article may be allowed to pass out of the stomach, it enters the bowels as an intruder, is an unwelcome stranger, the parts are unused to it, like a crumb of bread which has gone the wrong way by passing into the lungs, and nature sets up a violent coughing to eject the intruder.  As to the bowels, another plan is taken, but the object is the same—a speedy riddance. As soon as this unwelcome thing touches the lining of the bowels nature becomes alarmed, and, as when a bit of sand is in the eye, she throws out water, as if with the intention of washing it out of the body; hence the sudden diarrhœas with which persons are sometimes surprised. It was a desperate effort of nature to save the body, for if undigested food remains too long, either in the stomach or bowels, fits, convulsions, epilepsies, apoplexies, and death, are very frequent results.

As a universal rule in health, and, with very rare exceptions, in disease, that is best to be eaten which the appetite craves or the taste relishes.

Persons rarely err in the quality of the food eaten; nature’s instincts are the wise regulators in this respect.

The great sources of mischief from eating are three: Quantity, frequency, rapidity; and from these come the horrible dyspepsias which make of human life a burden, a torture, a living death.

By eating fast the stomach, like a bottle being filled through a funnel, is full and overflowing before we know it. But the most important reason is, the food is swallowed before time has been allowed to divide it in sufficiently small pieces with the teeth; for, like ice in a tumbler of water, the smaller the bits are, the sooner are they dissolved. It has been seen with the naked eye, that if solid food is cut up in pieces small as half a pea, it digests almost as soon, without being chewed at all, as if it had been well masticated. The best plan, therefore, is for all persons to thus comminute their food, for even if it is well chewed the comminution is no injury, while it is of very great importance in case of bury, forgetfulness, or bad teeth. Cheerful conversation prevents rapid eating.

It requires about five hours for a common meal to be dissolved and pass out of the stomach, during which time this organ is incessantly at work, when it must have repose, as any other muscle or set of muscles after such a length of effort. Hence persons should not eat within less than a five hours’ interval.  The heart itself is at rest more than one-third of its time. The brain perishes without repose.

All are tired when night comes; every muscle of the body is weary and looks to the bed; but just as we lie down to rest every other part of the body, if we, by a hearty meal, give the stomach five hours’ work, which, in its weak state, requires a much longer time to perform than at an earlier hour of the day, it is like imposing upon a servant a fall day’s labor just at the close of a hard day’s work; hence the imprudence of eating heartily late in the day or evening; and no wonder it has cost many a man his life.

No laborers or active persons should eat later than sun-down, and then it should not be over half the midday meal. Persons of sedentary habits or who are at all ailing should take absolutely nothing for supper beyond a single piece of cold stale bread and butter or a ship-biscuit, with a single cup of warm drink. Such a supper will always give better sleep and prepare for a heartier breakfast, with the advantage of having the exercise of the whole day to grind it up and extract its nutriment.

It is variety which oftenest tempts to excess. Many a man has been about to push himself back from the table with a feeling as if he did not want any more, when the unexpected appearance of some favorite dish has waked up a new appetite, and he “disposes” of an amount almost equal to that already taken. To prevent over-eating take food deliberately, keep up a lively conversation on pleasurable subjects during the entire repast, and avoid a variety of dishes. Tor ordinary purposes, there should be on the family table but one kind of bread, one kind of meat, one kind of vegetable, one kind of drink, and one kind of fruit or berries, as dessert; butter, olive-oil, salads, cream, salt, and pepper not being counted, but to be used as desired.

The most ruinous practice in reference to this subject is eating in a hurry, or under the influence of any disagreeable mental excitement, whether of anxiety, passion, or grief, for many have died within an hour by so doing.

Multitudes bring on themselves the horrors of a life-long dyspepsia by drinking large quantities of cold water at their meals, because by cooling the contents of the stomach, which maintains a heat of ninety-eight degrees, to that of the water drank at forty—ice-water being about thirty-two—digestion is as instantly arrested as a burning coal is extinguished by a dash of cold water; and this process is not resumed until heat enough has been drawn from the other parts of the body to raise the whole mass to its natural temperature; but this leaves the other parts of the system so cold that those who have not robust health sometimes rise from the table in a chill; at other times the general system, from want of vigor, has not been able to furnish the amount of heat necessary, digestion is not resumed, and diarrhœa endangers life or convulsions destroy it within a few hours. Large quantities of hot drinks at regular meals will, with equal certainty, destroy the tone of the stomach and lay the foundation for tedious and painful diseases. Invalids should never take any cold drink at meals; and whether hot or cold, they are wise and safe who never allow themselves over a quarter of a pint of liquid at a regular meal, or within an hour afterwards. A good position for the first half hour after eating is either to stand or sit erect; better still, walk leisurely in the open air, if not too cold, or across the room with hands behind, chin a little elevated, maintaining an agreeable frame of mind.  Particularly avoid a stooping position in sewing or reading for the first hour or two after meals, and also heavy lifting, hard study, or any intense mental emotion; these are all destructive of health; and although a single slight error may do no appreciable injury, it never fails to make an impress for ill, until at last there is one repetition too much, and a painful sickness, a life-long torture, or a speedy death from heart disease, hemorrhage, or apoplexy winds up the sad history.

Never force food on the stomach. Never eat without an appetite. Never eat between meals.

Always take breakfast before leaving the house in the morning. This will prevent an easy and early tiring, while the testimony of observant farmers of education corroborates the teachings of the best medical minds, that by strengthening the stomach and sending invigorating nutriment to the whole system, weakened by the long fast of the night, there is generated a power of resistance against the onsets of disease from the cold of winter and from the malarias and miasms of summer, especially in all flat, damp, and luxuriant soils, which can not be adequately expressed in language; while both experience and experiment have combined to show that, by the simple expedient of an early breakfast, individuals and families and neighborhoods have exempted themselves from that scourge of all new countries, “fever and ague,” especially if followed by a supper a little before sundown from May to November.

Experienced physicians in all countries very well know that the immediate cause of a vast number of cases of disease and death is a “cold;” it is that which fires a magazine of human ills; it is the spark to gunpowder. It was to a cold taken on a raw December day that the great Washington owed his death.  It was a common cold, aggravated by the injudicious advice of a friend, which ushered in the final illness of Washington Irving. Almost any reader can trace the death of some dear friend to a “little cold.”

The chief causes of colds are two: first, cooling off too soon after exercise; second, getting thoroughly chilled while in a state of rest without having been overheated. This latter originates dangerous pleurisies, fatal pneumonias (inflammation of the lungs) and deadly fevers of the typhoid type.

Persons in vigorous health do not take cold easily. They can do with impunity what would be fatal to the feeble and infirm. Dyspeptic persons take cold readily, but they are not aware of it, because its force does not fall on the lungs but on the liver through the skin, giving sick headache, and close questioning will soon develop the fact of some unusual bodily effort followed by cooling off rapidly.

A person wakes up some sunny morning and feels as if he had been “pounded in a bag.” Every joint is stiff, every muscle sore, and a single step cannot be taken without difficulty or actual pain.  Reflection will bring out some unwonted exercise, and a subsequent cooling off before knowing it—as working in the garden in the spring-time; over exertion about the house-work; showing new servants “how to do;” in going a “shopping,” an expedition which taxes the mind and body to the utmost—these and similar “little nothings” rouse women’s minds to a pitch of interest and excitement scarcely excelled by that of counsellors of state in determining the boundaries of empires or the fate of nations, to return home exhausted in body, depressed in mind, and thoroughly heated. The first thing done is to toss down a glass of water to cool off, next to lay aside bonnet, shawl, and “best dress,” and lastly, to put on a cold dress, lie down on a bed in a fireless room and fall asleep, to wake up almost certainly with a bad cold, which is to confine to the chamber for days and weeks together, and not unseldom carries them to the grave!

A lady was about getting into a small boat to cross the Delaware; but wishing first to get an orange at a fruit stand, she ran up the bank of the river, and on her return to the boat found herself much heated, for it was summer, but there was a little wind on the water, and the clothing soon felt cold to her. The next morning she had a severe cold, which settled on her lungs, and within the year she died of consumption.

A stout, strong man was working in a garden in May. Feeling a little tired about noon, he sat down in the shade of the house and fell asleep; he waked up chilly; inflammation of the lungs followed, ending, after two years of great suffering, in consumption.

A Boston ship-owner, while on the deck of one of his vessels, thought he would “lend a hand” in some emergency, and pulling off his coat, worked with a will until he perspired freely, when lie sat down to rest awhile, enjoying the delicious breeze from the sea. On attempting to rise he found himself unable, and was so stiff in his joints that he had to be carried home and put to bed, which he did not leave until the end of two years, when he was barely able to hobble down to the wharf on crutches.

A lady, after being unusually busy all day, found herself heated and tired toward sundown of a summer’s day.  She concluded she would rest herself by taking a drive to town in an open vehicle. The ride made her uncomfortably cool, but she warmed herself up by an hour’s shopping, when she turned homeward; it being late in the evening, she found herself more decidedly chilly than before. At midnight she had pneumonia, (inflammation of the lungs,) and in three months had the ordinary symptoms of confirmed consumption.

A lady of great energy of character lost her cook, and had to take her place for four days; the kitchen was warm, and there was a draught of air through it. When the work was done, warm and weary, she went to her chamber, and lay down on the bed to rest herself. This operation was repeated several times a day. On the fifth day she had an attack of lung fever; at the end of six months she was barely able to leave her chamber, only to find herself suffering with all the more prominent symptoms of confirmed consumption: such as quick pulse, night and morning cough, night-sweats, debility, short breath, and falling away.

A young lady rose from her bed on a November night, and leaned her arm on the cold window-sill to listen to a serenade. Next morning she had pneumonia, and suffered the horrors of asthma for the remainder of a long life.

Farmers’ wives lose health and life every year in one of two ways: by busying themselves in a warm kitchen until weary, and then throwing themselves on a bed or sofa without covering, and perhaps in a room without fire; or by removing the outer clothing, and perhaps changing the dress for a more common one, as soon as they enter the house after walking or working. The rule should be invariable to go at once to a warm room and keep on all the clothing at least for five or ten minutes, until the forehead is perfectly dry. In all weathers, if you have to walk and ride on any occasion do the riding first.

An engineer, in the vigor of manhood, brought upon himself an incurable disease through a cold taken by standing on a zinc floor as soon as he left his bed in the morning, while he washed himself. Many a farmer’s wife or daughter has lost her life by standing on a damp floor for hours together on washing days.

A young lady, the only daughter of a rich citizen, stood an hour on the damp grass, while listening to the music in the Central Park; the next day she was attacked with inflammation of the lungs, of which she died within a week.

An estimable lady, a farmer’s wife, busied herself in household affairs on a summer’s day; late in the afternoon, having perspired a good deal and being weary, she rode to town in an open vehicle to do some shopping; finding herself a little chilly, she walked rapidly on leaving her carriage, and soon became comfortably warm again. While shopping it rained. After the shower she started homeward in a cool wind; this checked the perspiration the second time, and with all available precaution she reached home chilled through and through, and died the victim of consumption within the year.

A farmer’s daughter "went a berrying;” the ground was flat and a little marshy; her shoes were thin, and by the excitement of company she remained several hours. She was ill next day. Four years later she stated to her physician that she had not seen a well hour since. She was then in the last stages of a hopeless decline, and died soon after.

A little attention would avert a vast amount of human suffering in these regards. Sedentary persons, invalids, and those in feeble health, should go directly to a fire after all forms of exercise, and keep all the garments on for a few minutes; or, if in warm weather, to a closed apartment, and, if anything, throw on an additional covering. When no appreciable moisture is found on the forehead the out-door garments may be removed. The great rule is, cool off very slowly always after the body has in any manner been heated beyond its ordinary temperature.

The moment a man is satisfied he has taken cold let him do three things:
First, eat nothing; second, go to bed, cover up warm in a warm room; third, drink as much cold water as he can, or as he wants, or as much hot herb tea as he can; and in three cases out of four he will be almost well in thirty-six hours; if not, send for an educated and experienced physician at once, for any “cold” which does not ““get better” within forty-eight hours is neither to be trifled with nor experimented upon.

The main object of dress is not to impart warmth, but to keep the natural warmth about the body, and thus prevent those sudden and fatal changes from heat to cold which occur in passing from an in-door temperature of sixty-five degrees to that of zero or lower without, as in mid-winter. The temperature of the northern States varies over a hundred degrees during the year, sometimes nearly half that within twenty-four hours. Dress provides against these destructive sudden changes, by maintaining the warmth of the skin a its natural state, which is ninety-eight degrees, whether a man is on an iceberg in Greenland or on a sand island in a tropical sea. The materials of clothing which best keep the heat about the body are called non-conductors, such as furs and woollens, while the conductors are such as cool the body, by conveying the natural heat from it with great rapidity; the greater conducting ability is measured by the greater coldness which an article causes on the first instant of its application. In the very coldest weather fur and woollen flannel appear but a little cool, and that but for an instant, and the next there is a sensation of increasing, comfortable warmth; cotton flannel feels colder than woollen, silk colder than cotton, Irish linen colder than silk, and damp Irish linen greatly colder than either.  A damp woollen shirt feels but a little cold, and begins to get warm and dry in an instant, even if the person is in a profuse perspiration; while an Irish linen or silk shirt, if damp with perspiration or otherwise, feels cold and clammy and sepulchral on the instant of its touching the skin, and will remain so for hours without getting dry, never failing to leave a cold in some troublesome or even dangerous form; hence, as persons perspire easily and profusely in summer, Irish linen cannot be worn in warm weather with impunity by the working classes and those liable to perspiration from a little walking or exercise. Thus it is that British sailors in the navy are compelled to wear woollen flannel shirts all the year and in all latitudes—in the north, because it keeps the natural warmth from escaping from the body, thus maintaining a temperature of ninety-eight degrees about the skin; and in hot climates in summer because, although woollen is a bad conductor of heat, it is a good conductor of water; for, if a woollen blanket is thrown over a sweating horse, in a very short time his hair and the inner side of the blanket will be dry, while the microscope will discover the whole outside surface spangled with millions of tiny drops of water. For these reasons woollen flannel should be worn next the skin by all our people from one year’s end to another—a gauze material in summer; in winter a more substantial article. White flannel fulls up, and becomes hard and stiff unless about a fifth of it is cotton. Colored flannel, especially the red, always remains soft and pliable. These things are indisputably true, and a practical attention to them, on the part of all hard-working people, would prevent an amount of pain and sickness every year which figures cannot express. This would be especially true if, in warm weather, when fires are not needed in the house, farmers and other laborers would wear a moderately stout article of red woollen flannel as a shirt, with nothing over it while at work, but at other times a thin coat over that. Any flannel garment worn during the day should be hung up to air at night, while the night-gown all the year round should be of stout cotton shirting, for if woollen is worn next the skin all the time it makes it callous, and is otherwise injurious. The best, safest, and most healthful head-dress for farmers and workmen all the year round is a common, easy-fitting wool or felt hat; in winter it keeps the head warm; in summer it is a great protection against sunstroke, especially if a silk handkerchief or a few leaves of a tree are worn in the crown. Such a hat is a great preventive of baldness, if worn from early youth, because it allows the blood to flow freely to and from the scalp; but if the vessels are compressed, as is done by the common unyielding silk hat, the free circulation of the blood is obstructed, and the nourishment of the hair-roots or bulbs being cut off, the hair perishes irretrievably, causing all the discomforts and inconveniences of baldness.

Death often comes to the honest laborer, as well as to others, through the feet, either by tightly-fitting shoes, which, by obstructing the circulation, keep the feet cold, thus laying the foundation for troublesome diseases, or by shoes which do not keep out the dampness. In purchasing new shoes, or having the measure taken, put on two pairs of woollen socks, without the knowledge of Crispin, and the new pair will feel from the first "as easy as an old shoe.”

A piece of tarred or pitch cloth sewed between the layers of the shoe-sole is a great protection against dampness from without; or take pitch, not hot enough to burn the leather, and apply it to the bottom and edges of the sole with a rag, let it dry thoroughly, and repeat the application thus three or four times; it is contended that a sole thus treated will not only be impervious to water and dampness, but will wear nearly twice as long as a sole not thus treated. It is an excellent plan to have two pairs of shoes, to be worn on alternate days, so as to have a perfectly dry pair to put on every morning, allowing the unworn ones to remain in a warm, dry place. Washing the feet every night in warm weather, and soaking them in warm water for ten minutes three times a week in winter, admirably promotes that warmth, pliability, and softness of the skin of the feet, so indispensable to health and comfort, saying nothing of the cleanliness of the practice, and its tendency both to prevent and to cure corns. But after all washings of the feet it is of the first importance, after wiping them well, to hold them to the fire and rub them with the hands until perfectly dry and warm in every part.

It will be useful to add here, in reference to corns, that they are caused by pressure and by friction also; hence they may be the result of a shoe that is either too tight or too loose. They can be always either permanently cured or kept within bounds by simply soaking the corn in hot water twenty minutes every night, and then patiently rub a few drops of sweet oil on the top of the corn; repeat the oil in the morning, and continue these until the core of the corn can be picked out with the finger-nail: nothing harder or sharper should ever touch a corn.

A sad record is it, and short! but its details would fill whole shelves of a library, more intensely interesting than any tale fancy ever told, as found in an official report for 1862, made to the legislature of an agricultural State, that of six hundred and seven patients in an insane asylum thirty-nine were farmers’ wives, sixteen farmers’ daughters; no other class of wives or daughters was half as numerous! and this in spite of all that has been said and sung of the dairy-maid, so ruddy of cheek, where the roses and the lily vie, so lithe of limb, whose breath as pure as the air of the morning, whose laugh as merry as the voices of the birds in the wood, and whose step as springy and elastic as the new-made bow; all these bright fancies vanish like mists of the morning before a summer’s sun, in face of the hard, dry, and statistical line written above; and there comes up another vision, not of youth and beauty and innocence and exuberant health, but that of the pale and wan and haggard face, half covered with long black hair, and coal black eyes peering hotly on you from behind the bars and grates of a dark prison-house!  True, happily true is it, that this state of things is not part and parcel, necessarily, of the farmhouse; it is not an inherent calamity; it is only an accidental circumstance, which can be remedied promptly and forever; and it is because of this delightful truth these pages are written. Fortunately, it cannot be denied that there is scarcely any lot in life, in this country, which promises so much quiet enjoyment, such uniform health and uninterrupted prosperity, as that of a gentleman farmer’s wife; of a man who has a well-improved, well-stocked plantation, all paid for, with no indebtedness, and a sufficient surplus of money always at command to meet emergencies and to take advantage of those circumstances of times and seasons and changing conditions which are constantly presenting themselves. Such a woman is incomparably more certain of living in quiet comfort to a good old age than the wife of a merchant-prince, or one of the money-kings of Wall street; who, although they may clear thousands in a day, do, nevertheless, in multitudes of cases, die in poverty, leaving their wives and daughters to the sad heritage of being slighted and forgotten by those who once were made happy by their smiles; and to pine away in tears and destitution. On the other hand, it is often a sad lot indeed to be the wife of a farmer who begins married life by renting a piece of land or buying a “place” on credit, with the moth of “interest” feeding on the sweat of his face every moment of his existence.

The affectionate and steady interest, the laudable pride, and the self-denying devotion which wives have for the comfort, prosperity, and respectability of their husbands and children; is a proverb and a wonder in all civilized lands.  There is an abnegation of self in this direction as constant as the flow of time; so loving, so uncomplaining, so heroic, that if els make note of mortal things they may well look down in smiling admiration.  But it is a melancholy and undeniable fact that, in millions of cases, that which challenges angelic admiration fails to be recognized or appreciated by the very men who are the incessant objects of these high, heroic virtues. In plain language, in the civilization of the latter half of the nineteenth century, a farmer’s wife, as a too general rule, is a laboring drudge; not of necessity by design, but for want of that consideration, the very absence of which, in reference to the wife of a man’s youth, is a crime. It is perhaps safe to say, that on three farms out of four the wife works harder, endures more, than any other on the place; more than the husband, more than the “farm-hand,” more than the "hired help" of the kitchen. Many a farmer speaks to his wife habitually in terms more imperious, impatient, and petulant than he would use to the scullion of the kitchen or to his hired man.

   2. In another way a farmer inadvertently increases the hardships of his wife; that is, by speaking to her or treating her disrespectfully in the presence of the servants or children. The man is naturally the ruling spirit of the household, and if he fails to show to his wife, on all occasions, that tenderness, affection, and respect, which is her just due, it is instantly noted on the part of menials, and children too, and they very easily glide into the same vice, and interpret it as an encouragement to slight her authority, to undervalue her judgment, and to lower that high standard of respect which of right belongs to her. And as the wife has the servants and children always about her, and is under the necessity of giving hourly instructions, the want of fidelity and promptness to these is sufficient to derange the whole household, and utterly thwart that regularity and system, without which there is no domestic enjoyment, and but little thrift on the farm.

The indisputable truth is, that there is no other item of superior, or perhaps equal, importance, in the happy and profitable management of any farm, great or small, than that every person on it should be made to understand that deference and respect and prompt and faithful obedience should be paid, under all circumstances, to the wife, the mother, and the mistress; the larger the farm, the greater interests there are at stake. If poor, then the less ability is there to run the risk of losses which are certain to occur in the failure of proper obedience. An illustration: a tardy meal infallibly ruffles the temper of the workmen, and too often of the husband; yet all the wife’s orders were given in time; but the boy has lagged in bringing wood; or the girl failed to put her loaf to bake in season, because they did not fear the mistress, and the master was known not to be very particular to enforce his wife’s authority. If by these causes a dinner is thrown back half an hour, it means on a good-sized farm a loss of time equivalent to the work of one hand a whole day; it means the very considerable difference between working pleasantly and grumblingly the remainder of the day; it means, in harvest time, in showery weather, the loss of loads of hay or grain.

   3. Time and money and health, and even life itself, are not unfrequently lost by want of promptitude on the part of the farmer in making repairs about the house, in procuring needed things in time, and in failing to have those little conveniences which, although their cost is even contemptible, are in a measure practically invaluable. The writer was in a farmer’s house one night, where the wife and two daughters were plying their needles industriously by the dim light of a candle, the wick of which was frequently clipped off by a pair of scissors. And yet this man owned six hundred acres of fine grazing lands, and every inch paid for. I once called on an old friend, a man of education, and of a family loved and honored all over his native State.  His buildings were of brick, in the centre of an inherited farm of several hundred acres. The house was supplied with the purest, coldest, and best water from a well in the yard; the facilities for obtaining which were a rope, one end of which was tied to a post, the other to an old tin pan, literally.  The discomfort and unnecessary labor involved in these two cases may be estimated by the reader at his leisure.

I know it to be the case, and have seen it on many western farms, when firewood was wanted, a tree was cut down and hauled bodily to the door of the kitchen; and when it was all gone another was drawn up to supply its place, giving the servant and the wife green wood with which to kindle and keep up their fires.

There are thousands of farms in this country where the spring which supplies all the water for drink and cooking is from a quarter to half a mile distant from the house, and a “pailful” is brought at a time, involving five or ten miles’ walking in a day, for months or years together, when a little mechanical ingenuity or a few dollars expense would bring the water to the door.  How many weeks of painful and expensive sickness; how many lives have been lost of wives and daughters and servants, by being caught in a shower between the house and the spring, while in a state of perspiration or weakness from working over the fire, cannot be known, but that they may be numbered by thousands will not be intelligently denied.

Many a time a pane of glass has been broken out, or a shingle has been blown from the roof, and the repair has not been made for weeks or many months together; and for want of it have come agonizing neuralgias; or a child has waked up in the night with the croup, to get well only with a doctor’s bill, which would have paid twenty times for the repair, even if a first- born has not died, to agonize a mother’s heart to the latest hour of life; or the leak in the roof has remained, requiring the placing of a bucket or the washing of the floor at every rain.

   4. Cruelties are thoughtlessly sometimes, and sometimes recklessly, perpetrated by farmers on their wives, as follows: a child or other member of the family is taken sick in the night; the necessary attention almost invariably falls on the wife, to be extended through a greater part, if not the whole night. Wearied with the previous day’s duties, with those solicitudes which always attend sickness; with the responsibilities of the occasion, and a loss of requisite rest, the wife is many times expected to “see to breakfast” in the morning, as if nothing had happened. The husband goes to his work, soon becomes absorbed in it, and forgets all about the previous night’s disturbance; meets his wife at the dinner-table; notices not the worn-out expression on her face; makes no inquiry as to her feelings; and if anything on or about the table is not just exactly as it ought to be, it is noticed with a harshness which would be scarcely excusable if it had been brought about with a deliberate calculation.

The same thing occurs multitudes of times during the nursing periods of mothers; how many nights a mother’s rest is broken half a dozen times by a restless, crying, or ailing infant, every mother and observant man knows. In such cases the farmer goes into another room, and sleeps soundly until the morning; and yet, in too many cases, although this may be, and is repeated several nights in succession, the husband does not hesitate to wake his wife up with the information that it is nearly sunrise, the meaning of which is, that he expects her to get up and attend to her duties.  No wonder that in many of our lunatic asylums there are more farmers’ wives than any other class; for there is no fact in medical science more positively ascertained than that insufficient sleep is the most speedy and certain road to the madhouse. Let no farmer, then, let no mechanic, let no man, who has any human sympathy still left, allow his wife to be waked up in the morning except from very urgent causes; and, further, let them give every member of the household to understand that quietude about the premises is to be secured always until the wife leaves her chamber; thus having all the sleep which nature will take, the subsequent energy, cheerfulness, and activity which will follow will more than compensate for the time required to “get her sleep out,” not only as to her own efficiency, but as to that of every other member of the household; for let it be remembered that a merry industry is contagious.

There are not a few farmers whose imperious wills will not brook the very slightest dereliction of duty on the part of any hand in their employ, and whose force of character is such that everything on the farm, outside the house, goes on like clockwork. They look to their wives to have similar management indoors, and are so swift to notice even slight shortcomings, that at length their appearance at the family table has become inseparable from scenes of jarring, fault-finding, sneering, depreciating comparisons, if not of coarse vituperation; and all this simply from the failure to remember that they have done nothing to make the wife’s authority in her domain as imperative as their own. They make no account of the possible accidents of green wood to cook with; of an adverse wind which destroys the draught of the chimney; of the breaking down of the butcher’s cart, or of their own failure to procure some necessary material. They never inquire if the grocer has not sent an inferior article, or an accident has befallen the stove or some cooking utensil. It is in such ways as these, and many more like them, that the farmer’s wife has her whole existence poisoned by those daily tortures which come from her husband’s thoughtlessness, his inconsideration, his hard nature, or his downright stupidity. A wife naturally craves her husband’s approbation. “Thy desire shall be to thy husband” is the language of Scripture, which, whatever may be the specific meaning of the quotation, certainly carries the idea that she looks up to him with a yearning inexpressible, for comfort, for support, for smiles and sympathy; and when she does not get these, the whole world else is a waste of waters, or life a desert, as barren of sustenance as the great Sahara. But this is only half the sorrow. When, in addition to this want of approbation and sympathy, there comes the thoughtless complaint; the remorseless and repeated fault-finding and the contemptuous gesture, when all was done that was possible under the circumstances—in the light of treatment like this, it is not a wonder that settled sadness and hopelessness is impressed on the face of many a farmer’s wife, which is considered by the thoughtful physician as the prelude to that early wasting away which is the lot of many a virtuous and faithful and conscientious woman.

The attentive reader will not fail to have observed that the derelictions adverted to on the part of farmer husbands are not regarded necessarily as the result of a perverse nature, but rather in the main from inconsideration or ignorance; but, from whatever cause, the effect is an unmixed evil, and it is to be hoped that our religious papers and all agricultural publications will persistently draw attention to these things, so as to excite a higher sentiment in this direction.  It can be done and ought to be done; and it is highly creditable to the Department of Agriculture to have expressly desired that an article should be written on the subject of the hardships and the unnecessary exposures of farmers’ wives, to the end that information and instruction should be imparted in this direction.

There are some suggestions to be made with a view to lightening the load of farmers’ wives, the propriety, the wisdom, and advantages of which cannot fail to be impressed on every intelligent mind.

   1. A timely supply of all that is needed about a farmer’s house and family is of incalculable importance; and when it is considered that most of these things will cost less to get them in season, and also that a great deal of unnecessary labor can be avoided by so doing, it would seem only necessary to bring the fact distinctly before the farmer’s mind to secure an immediate, an habitual, and a life-long attention. The work necessary to keep a whole household in easily running order is very largely curtailed by having everything provided in time, and by taking advantage of those little domestic improvements devised by busy brains, and which are brought to public notice weekly in the columns of our agricultural papers.

   2.  It requires less time and less labor to have the winter’s wood for house- heating and cooking brought into the yard and piled up cozily under a shed or placed in a wood-house in the fall, than to put it off until the last moment, when perhaps it is saturated with water, or, still worse, to compel the women to use green wood, and perhaps to cut and split it at that.

   3. It is incalculably better to have the potatos and other vegetables gathered and placed in the cellar or in an outhouse near by in the early fall so that the cook may get at them under cover, than to put it off week after week, until near Christmas, compelling the wife and servants, once or twice every day, to leave a heated kitchen, and most likely with thin shoes, go to the garden with a tin pan and a hoe, to dig them out of the wet ground and bring them home in slosh or rain. The truth is, it perils the life of the hardiest persons, while working over the fire in cooking or washing, to go outside the door of the kitchen for an instant; a damp, raw wind may be blowing, which, coming upon an inner garment, throws a chill or the clamminess of the grave over the whole body in an instant of time, to be followed by the reaction of fever or fatal congestion of the lungs; or by making a single step in the mud, which is in thousands of cases allowed to accumulate at the very door-sill for want of a board or two, or a few flat stones, not a rod away.

   4. No farmer’s wife who is a mother ought to be allowed to do the washing of the family; it is perilous to any woman who has not a vigorous constitution. The farmer, if too poor to afford help for that purpose, had better exchange a day’s work himself. There are several dangers to be avoided while at the tub. It requires a person to stand for hours at a time. This is a strain upon the young wife or mother, which is especially perilous; besides, the evaporation of heat from the arms, by being put in warm water and then raised in the air alternately, so rapidly cools the system that inflammation of the lungs is a very possible result. Then the labor of washing excites perspiration and induces fatigue; in this condition the body is so susceptible to taking cold that a few moments’ rest in a chair, or exposure to a draught of air, especially in hanging out clothes, is quite enough to cause a chill, with results painful or even dangerous, according to the particular condition of the system at the time. No man, however poor, has a right to risk his wife’s health in this way, if lie has vigorous health himself; and, if poor, he cannot afford, for the three to six shillings which would pay for a day’s washing, to risk his wife’s health, her time for two or three weeks, and the incurring of a doctor’s bill, which it may require painful economies for months to liquidate.

   5. Every farmer owes it to himself, in a pecuniary point of view, and to his wife and children, as a matter of policy and affection, to provide the means early for clothing his household according to the seasons, so as to enable them: to prepare against winter esY)ecia.lly. Every winter garment should be completed by the first of November, ready to be put on when the first winter day comes. In multitudes of cases valuable lives have been lost to farmers’ families by improvidence as to this point. Most special attention should be given to the under clothing; that should be prepared first, and enough of it to have a change in case of an emergency or accident. Many farmers act even niggardly in furnishing their wives the means for such things. It is far wiser and safer to stint the members of his family in their food than in-the timely and abundant supply of substantial under clothing for winter wear. It would save an incalculable amount of hurry and its attendant vexations, and also of wearing anxiety, if farmers were to supply their wives with the necessary material for winter clothing as early as midsummer. In this connexion it would be well for farmers to learn a lesson of thrift from some of our long-headed city housewives. It is particularly the habit of the well-to-do, the forehanded, and the rich—by which they legally and rightfully get at least twenty per cent. for their money—to purchase the main articles of clothing at the close of any season, to be made up and worn the corresponding season of the next year. Merchants uniformly aim, especially in cities, to “close out” their stocks, for example, for the winter, at the end of winter or beginning of spring.  They consider it profitable to sell out the remnant of their winter stock in March at even less than cost, for on what they get for these remnants they make three profits—on the spring, the summer, and the fall goods—whereas bad they laid by their winter stock they would have had but one profit, from which would have to be deducted the yearly interest, storage, and insurance.  Thus by purchasing clothing materials six or eight months beforehand, the farmer not only saves from twenty to forty per cent. of the first cost, but gives his wife the opportunity of working upon them at such odds and ends of time as would otherwise be unemployed in a measure, and would enable her also to have everything done in a better manner, simply by having abundant time, thus avoiding haste, vexation, solicitude, and disappointment, for nothing clouds a household as a sense of being behindhand and of the necessity of painful hurry and effort.

   6. Few things will bring a more certain and happy reward to a farmer than for him to remember his wife is a social being; that she is not a machine, and therefore needs rest, and recreation, and change. No farmer will lose in the long run, either in money, health, or domestic comfort, enjoyment and down- right happiness, by allotting an occasional afternoon, from mid-day until bedtime, to visiting purposes.  Let him; with the utmost cheerfulness and heartiness, leave his work, dress himself up, and take his wife to some pleasant neighbor’s, friend’s, or kinsman’s house, for the express purpose of relaxation from the cares and toils of home, and for the interchange of friendly feelings and sentiments, and also as a means of securing that change of association, air, and food, and mode of preparation, which always wakes up the appetite, invigorates digestion, and imparts a new physical energy, at once delightful to see and to experience; all of which; in turn, tend to cultivate the mind, to nourish the affections, and to promote that breadth of view in relation to men and things which elevates, and expands, and ennobles; and without which the whole nature becomes so narrow, so contracted, so barren and uninteresting, that both man and woman become but a shadow of what they ought to be.

   7. Let the farmer never forget that his wife is his best friend, the most steadfast on earth; would do more for him in calamity, in misfortune, and sickness than any other human being, and on this account, to say nothing of the marriage vow, made before high Heaven and before men, he owes to the wife of his bosom a consideration, a tenderness, a support, and a sympathy, which should put out of sight every feeling of profit and loss the very instant they come in collision with his wife’s welfare as to her body, her mind, and her affections. No man will ever lose in the long run by so doing; he will not lose in time, will not lose in a dying hour, nor in that great and mysterious future which lies before all.

   8. There are “seasons" in the life of women which, as to some of them, so affect the general system, and the mind also, as to commend thenf to our warmest sympathies, and which imperatively demand from the sterner sex the same patience, and forbearance, and tenderness which they themselves would want meted out to them if they were not of sound mind. At these times some women, whose uniform good sense, propriety of deportment, and amiability of character command our admiration, become so irritable, fretful, complaining, quarrelsome, and unlovely as to almost drive their husbands mad.  Their conduet is so inexplicable, so changed, so perfectly causeless that they are almost overcome with desperation, with discouragement, or indignant defiance of all rules of justice, of right, or of humanity. The ancients, noticing this to occur to some women for a few days in every month, gave it the appellation of “lunacy,” luna being the Latin name for moon or monthly. Some women, at such times, are literally insane, without their right mind, and, as it is an infliction of nature, far be it from any husband, with the feelings of a man, to fail at such times to treat his wife with the same kind care, and extra tenderness, and pitying love that he would show to a demented only child.  The skillful physician counsels in such cases the scrupulous avoidance of every word, or action, or even look which by any possibility could iritate the mind, excite the brain, or wound the sensibilities, and, as far as possible, to yield gracefully and good-naturedly to every whim and every caprice; to seem to control in nothing, to yield in all things. Under these calming influences the mind sooner resumes its wonted rule; the heart gushes out in new loves and wakes up to a warmer affection than was ever known before. A misunderstanding of the case and an impatient resistance at all points has before now driven women to desperation, to a life-long hate, to suicide, or to a fate worse than all—to peer through the iron bars of a lunatic’s cell for a long and miserable lifetime. Let every husband who has a human heart consider the subject well.

   9. In these and other peculiar states of the system, arising from nervous derangement, women are sometimes childish, and various curious phenomena take place. There is an inability to speak for a moment or a month, the heart seems to “jump up in the mouth,” or there is a terrible feeling of impending suffocation. At other times there are actual convulsions, or an uncontrollable bursting out into tears. These and other disagreeable phenomena are derisively and unfeelingly called “hysterics” or “nervousness,” but they are no more unreal to the sufferer than are the pains of extraction for “nothing but the toothache.” These symptoms are not unfrequently set down to the account of perverseness when it should no more be done than to call-it perversity to break out in uncontrollable grief at the sudden information of the death of the dearest friend on earth. The course of conduct to be pursued in cases of this kind is at once the dictate of science, of humanity, and of common sense; it is to sympathize with and soothe the patient in all ways possible, until the excess of perturbation has passed away, and the system calms down to its natural, even action.

   10. Unless made otherwise by a vicious training a woman is as naturally tasteful, tidy, and neat in herself, and as to all her surroundings, as the beautiful canary, which bathes itself every morning, and will not be satisfied until each rebellious feather is compelled to take the shape and place which nature designed. It is nothing short of brutality to war against those pure elevating and refining instincts of a woman’s better nature, and it is a husband’s highest duty, his interest, and should be his pleasure and his pride, to sympathize with his wife in the cultivation of these instincts, and to cheerfully afford her the necessary means, as far as he' can do so consistently.” No money is better spent on a farm, or anywhere else, than that which enables the wife to make herself, her children, her husband, and her house appear fully up to their circumstances.  The consciousness of a torn or buttonless jacket or soiled dress worn at school degrades a boy or girl in their own estimation, and who that is a man does not hate to feel that he is wearing a ragged or dirty shirt? The wife who is worthy of the name will never allow these things if she is provided with means for their prevention, and it is in the noble endeavor to maintain for herself and family a respectability of appearance which their station demands, with means and help far too limited, which so irritates and chafes and annoys her proper pride that many a time the wife’s heart and constitution and health are all broken together. This is the history of multitudes of farmers’ wives, and the niggardly natures which allow it, after taking an intelligent view of the subject, are. simply beneath contempt.  What adds to the better appearance of the person elevates; what adds to the better appearance of a farm increases its value and the respectability of the occupant; so that it is always a good investment, morally and pecuniarily, for a farmer to supply his wife generously and cheerfully, according to his ability, with the means of making her family and home neat, tasteful, and tidy.  A bunch of flowers or a shilling ribbon for the dress, or a few pennies’ worth of lime or a dollar’s worth of paint for the house, may be so used as to give an impression of life of cheerfulness, and of thrift about, home altogether beyond the value of the means employed for the purpose.

Many a farmer’s wife is literally worked to death in an inadvertent manner from want of reflection or consideration on the part of her husband.  None can understand better than he, in ploughing, or sowing, or harvest time, that if a horse gets sick, or runs away, or is stolen, another must be procured that very day or the work will inevitably go behindhand. He does not carry the same practical sense into the kitchen when the hired help leaves without warning or becomes disabled, although he knows as well as any man can know that "the hands” will expect their meals with the same regularity, with the same promptness, and with the same proper mode of preparation; but, instead of procuring other “help” on the instant, he allows himself to be persuaded, if the “help” is sick, she will get well in a day or two, or in a week at furthest, and that it is hardly worth while to get another for so short a time. If the “help” has taken "French leave" his mind fixes on the fact that it is a very busy time, and neither he nor a single hand can be spared, or that, in the course of a week, some one will have to go to town for some other purpose, and both these matters can be attended to at the same time. Meanwhile the wife is expected not only to attend to her ordinary duties as usual, but somehow or other to spare the time to do all that the cook or washerwoman was accustomed to, that is, to do the full work of two persons, each one of whom had already quite as much labor to perform as she could possibly attend to. The wife attempts it. By herculean efforts all goes on well. The farmer perceives no jar, no hitch in the working of the machinery, and, because no complaint is uttered, thinks that everything is going on without an effort. Meanwhile time passes, and (infinite shame on some of them) they begin to calculate how much has been saved from servants’ wages, and how much less food has been eaten, and, because still no complaint is made, the resolution quietly forms in the mind to do nothing until she does complain; but, before that takes place, she falls a victim to her over-exertions, in having laid the foundation for weeks and months of illness, if not of a premature decline and death. Sincerely it is believed that these statements ought to be written in large letters above the mantels of half the farmers of the country, and, if over the other half also, it would not be labor lost in favor of many a heroic and uncomplaining but outraged farmer’s wife and daughter.

Let all, especially the young, who look to farming as the future pursuit of life, and who desire to avoid a large share of the ordinary discomforts, privations, unhappiness, and want of health which too often befall so worthy and so large a class of society as farmers’ families are, remember these two cardinal suggestions:
   First. Never purchase more land for farming purposes than can be paid for without borrowing.
   Second. Never attempt to cultivate more than can be thoroughly done with the help which can be readily commanded; for one acre will yield more with a given amount of well-expended labor than two acres will yield with the same.
   Finally, let the farmer always remember that his wife’s cheerful and hearty co-operation is essential to his success, and is really of as much value in attaining it, all things considered, as anything that he can do; and, as she is very certainly his superior in her moral nature, it legitimately follows that he should not only regard her as his equal in material matters, but should habitually accord to her that deference, that consideration, and that high respect which is of right her due, and which can never fail to impress on the children and servants, who daily witness it, a dignity and an elevation of manner, and thought, and feeling, and deportment which will prove to all who see them that the wife is a lady, and the husband a man and a gentleman, and large pecuniary success, with a high moral position and wide social influence will be the almost certain results.

The remedy for the startling evil which the official statement made in the beginning brings to light, is in the husband and mother.  Let the farmer feel that his wife is an equal partner on the farm, and as such is entitled to as high consideration as he claims for himself. He should have a jealous care for the “good name of the house.” Let him feel that what degrades his wife degrades himself, that whatever weakens her authority weakens his own power of success, and that in the great struggle of life they must of necessity rise or fall together.  But while he cherishes these views as a business matter, as a practical thing of profit and loss, let him make an effort in another direction, not considering his wife merely as his partner in business, but ad the love of his youth, who having, in a perfect abandon of trustfulness, thrown herself into his strong arms to be guided, protected, and sustained through life’s long journey, has claims on him for these stronger than any tie other than that which binds man to Divinity; so strong, indeed, that inspiration has declared, that in heaven was it made, and by Heaven only can it be unloosed; and feeling thus, let him see in the wife of his bosom, though she may be all wrinkled with age, only the fair and loving and the fondly trusting girl as she appeared at the moment of saying “I will” many years agone. Let the mother also busy herself in teaching her daughters what they ought to do, what they have a right to expect in the marriage relation; and above this even, let her inculcate on her sons, day by day, with wisdom and tenderness, charging them lovingly to remember when she is dead and gone, by all the respect and reverence and affection which they may have for her memory, to treat, for her sake, the wives of their bosoms with all that affection and tenderness and consideration and sympathy which they would have their father show her if she could but be brought back again, or which they themselves would gladly show her if they had the opportunity.