Some one says that their only chance for social life is in going to some insane asylum! There have been four cases of suicide in farmers' families near me within eighteen months.
This does not apply to the fortunate farmer who inherited money and is shrewd enough to keep and increase it.

Nor to the market gardener, who raises vegetables under glass; nor to the owners of large nurseries.
These do make a good living, and are also able to save something.
In general, it is all one steady rush of work from March to November; unceasing, uncomplaining activity for the barest support, followed by three months of hibernation and caring for the cattle.

Horace Greeley said: "If our most energetic farmers would abstract ten hours each per week from their incessant drudgery and devote them to reading and reflection in regard to their noble calling, they would live to a better purpose and bequeath better examples to their children." It may have been true long years ago that no shares, factory, bank, or railroad paid better dividends than the plowshare, but it is the veriest nonsense now.
Think of the New England climate in summer.

Rufus Choate describes it eloquently: "Take the climate of New England in summer, hot to-day, cold to-morrow, mercury at eighty degrees in the shade in the morning, with a sultry wind southwest.

In three hours more a sea turn, wind at east, a thick fog from the bottom of the ocean, and a fall of forty degrees.