condition in that classic town is so agreeable that we will quote it in full.

"The farmers in Concord,-where I live,-as a class, are in better condition, socially, intellectually and physically, than in most other towns, I suppose. This is a farming town, with no manufactures, and few of other callings, except a sprinkling of philosophers, lawyers and others who do business in Boston. I have attended a farmer's club of some forty members regularly for six years, and, as a supper closes each meeting, I know pretty well how they live. As a class, our farmers are intelligent enough to write essays worth publishing. They are out of debt, own good farms, and have all the comforts of life. Their daughters are well educated and teach most of our public schools, and many teach in Boston and elsewhere. There are about 186 persons in Concord, who own ten acres or more each. A number of these are not really farmers. We send to Boston annually, I estimate, enough milk to bring the farmers $140,000 cash, paid monthly. We send, it is said, more asparagus than any other town, and strawberries at the rate of one or two hundred bushels a day, in the best of the season, with a constant trade in market vegetables, in cranberries, grapes and other fruits in their season. Almost every farmer has, in addition to his market-wagons, a good carryall, and a large proportion, perhaps a majority, have pianos. We believe with our townsman, Emerson, that all true nobility rests upon the soil.' If the farmers in the rest of the Commonwealth are as well off as those in Concord, they had better be content."

Another phase of farming in this State is thus described by Dr. Haddock, of Beverly.

"We are not much of a farming community. Our farmers, for the most part, are men of good habits and steady ways,men who have inherited their farms, which are mostly small, with but little land under cultivation, and raising mostly early vegetables and other light crops for the market. The real country farm is not known here. Many work in the shoeshops and let the boys' carry on the farm, getting what they need off it, and selling what they do not want themselves. The boys leave as soon as they can, and so, between the two, the farm runs to waste. The girls can make as much in the

shop in a day as they can on the farm in a week or more, and have their evenings to themselves. A few, to be sure, pretend to be farmers, and do make some show of farming, but money is so much more readily obtained in other ways with us, that the farm answers more the purpose of a 'home' than a place of business. Our farmers are a shrewd, smart, healthy set of men, who can turn an honest penny at almost anything their hands find to do; and the children wander away and fall into other pursuits more congenial to their tastes and ideas of life, whether with better results remains to be seen."

In Berkshire County the farmers appear to thrive. Though the season is even shorter than in the rest of the State, they raise abundant crops of hay, corn, potatoes, and some tobacco. They send milk to New York, and have no difficulty in selling, at good prices, all the vegetables, butter, eggs and fowls that they can raise. With hard work and economy, they are as independent as any class of the community; but, if they grow rich, it is generally by some outside speculations, and not by farming.

The farmers of our State have generally what is known as a common school education." While there are but very few who cannot read and write, the number who have a liberal education is extremely small. Indeed, excepting with the amateurs, education and agriculture seem to be almost incompatible in this State. The farmers' sons who are liberally educated invariably choose some other occupation in which there is less hard work and greater immediate profit, leaving the duller but industrious boys, who dislike books and love labor, to succeed to the management of the paternal acres. Of the graduates of the Agricultural College, even, but very few become farmers. The agricultural class, therefore, while furnishing the best of material to the professions and the various branches of manufacture and trade, does not itself make rapid progress in education and culture. Our farmers work more with their hands than their brains, and consequently have to work altogether too hard during the busy season. During the winter they read the newspapers, at least, and thus keep themselves posted upon general matters of interest. Hence, they are a sturdy, reliable class of men, of strong prejudices, slow to change their opinions, but possessed of shrewd common-sense, a practical kind of wisdom which the highest

education frequently fails to confer. Their hard work and moderate means make them thrifty, sharp at a bargain, economical. Not infrequently, like other people, they run to the excess of economy, and fall into parsimony,-a vice, born of a virtue, which, like all vices, carries its punishment with it; and in no way is this more striking than in everything pertaining to health, for far too frequent are the cases where the health of the farmer and his family suffers seriously in consesequence of a mistaken or excessive economy.

But the great body of our farmers form the best of material for the dissemination of sanitary science, for their intelligence leads them to understand its principles and appreciate their value, while their practical ingenuity serves to apply them to the best advantage. We feel sure, therefore, that time and labor devoted to this subject cannot be wholly wasted, but is very likely to be productive of good.

LONGEVITY.

The most reliable statistics upon the comparative longevity of farmers are contained in the Massachusetts, Registration Reports. The tables are prepared by finding the average age at death of persons over twenty years of age, whose occupation is given. As the value of such tables chiefly depends upon the number of individuals included, the latest will be the best; and we therefore take from the report for 1871, in which are classified, by general occupation, all the deaths, over the age of twenty, occurring during a period of twenty-eight years and eight months, ending December 31, 1871.

By this table it appears that 28,224 cultivators of the earth died at an average age of 65.13 years, being 14.19 years more than the average of all occupations, and 12.51 more than the next highest class, namely, active mechanics abroad. The figures, therefore, show the farmers to be, by far, the longest-lived class in the State.

But the value of this table is modified by the fact that occupations are very frequently changed; and, in its reference to farmers, that many persons first become farmers at middle. age, purchasing their land with the money acquired in mechanical or mercantile pursuits. This would give them, in the table, an increased longevity, without indicating a corresponding life-prolonging tendency in their occupation. On the other hand, the table must give to some of the other classes too short a life-period, since, in the ceaseless struggle in this country for personal independence and higher social position, many laborers, artisans, and mechanics become, later in life, farmers, capitalists, or gentlemen of leisure.

In order to obtain further enlightenment upon this subject, the following question has been put to a number of physicians practising, more or less, in agricultural districts.

1st Question. "What rank do you assign to farmers, as regards longevity, in comparison with other classes of the community?"

Of forty-nine correspondents, eighteen say "first rank," one says "second," one says "third," six say "medium" or "average," and six make no answer. The remaining seventeen give answers, more or less general in character, which we cannot do better than quote in full.

Bonney.—After the so-called learned professions, I should say that it would equal that of any other class. Mere farm-laborers, I think, would not attain to so great an age as the farmers who own farms.

Burgess. Should think they would be the longest-lived class, for these three reasons, viz. :—

1. They live out of doors.

2. They are too lazy to be hurt by overwork.

3. Too poor to be over-fed.

Clark. When farmers are contented with their lot as farmers, I assign to them a long life and a happy life. Still, they may become broken down by

hard labor or killed by accident. But the average life of farmers is greater than any other class.

Crowell. Not greater than that of persons in villages, engaged in mechanical pursuits, except operatives in mills. Less than that of professional men.

Goddard.-Much the larger share of old people here are farmers and their families, but I do not think their occupation has much to do with this. Think deaths yearly among farmers about the same as others, according to numbers.

Hawkes.-There are two classes of farmers,-the operative farmer or tiller of the soil, and the speculative or supervising farmer. The former, according to my observation, should fall low in the scale of longevity, while the latter would stand near its summit.

Hills.-Farmers live to as advanced age as any class of people in this

vicinity.

Hosmer. I cannot assign them the first, as the oldest people I have ever known have not been farmers.

Kimball.—I think, in this vicinity, the longevity of farmers exceeds that of almost any other class.

Lawrence.—Less, especially in the mountain towns, e. g. Florida and Savoy. Morse. I have no statistics at hand, but my impression is, that farmers, in this section, live as long as any other class of men, perhaps longer.

Paddock. Compared with other classes of the community, it is my opinion that farmers are neither so short nor long lived as some. I should say their longevity was about medium.

Parks. A front rank among the classes of laborers.

Stone.-Quite a high rank.

Webster.-Poorer than professional, but better than business men. About the same as mechanics.

Wilcox.-I should assign to farmers, from their necessarily active habits and out-door life, despite some unfavorable influences, a high position in the scale of longevity.

Winsor.-Above laborers, business men and "operatives"; below professional men.

From these replies, taken in connection with the registration tables, we cannot but form a favorable opinion of the longevity of farmers, and are probably correct in concluding that a farmer's chances of long life in this State are somewhat greater than those of any other class.

But it does not follow that the wives and children of farmers are longer-lived than the wives and children of men in other callings. In fact, there is much in the cares and duties