the first table. He may have the sweetest of the milk, there are
thousands, perhaps millions, of men and women in America who have never
in their lives tasted really sweet milk and the freshest of eggs, and
the ripest of fruit. One does not know how good strawberries or
raspberries are when picked before breakfast and eaten with the dew
still on them. And while he must work and sweat for what he gets, he may
have all these things in almost unmeasured abundance, and without a
thought of what they cost. A man from the country is often made
uncomfortable, upon visiting the city, to find two cans of sweet corn
served for twenty or thirty cents, or a dish of raspberries at
twenty-five or forty--and neither, even at their best, equal in quality
to those he may have fresh from the garden every day. One need say this
in no boastful spirit, but as a simple statement of the fact: for
fruits sent to the city are nearly always picked before they are fully
ripe--and lose that last perfection of flavour which the sun and the
open air impart: and both fruits and vegetables, as well as milk and
eggs, suffer more than most people think from handling and shipment.
These things can be set down as one of the make-weights against the
familiar presentation of the farmer's life as a hard one.

One of the greatest curses of mill or factory work and with much city
work of all kinds, is its interminable monotony: the same process
repeated hour after hour and day after day. In the country there is
indeed monotonous work but rarely monotony. No task continues very long:
everything changes infinitely with the seasons. Processes are not
repetitive but creative. Nature hates monotony, is ever changing and
restless, brings up a storm to drive the haymakers from their hurried
work in the fields, sends rain to stop the ploughing, or a frost to
hurry the apple harvest. Everything is full of adventure and
vicissitude! A man who has been a farmer for two hours at the mowing