THE FARMERS LIFE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2929, 1 August 1911, Page 7

THE FARMERS LIFE.

HIS REAL TROUBLE

I met my friend the farmer, 6ayc Mr. Bensusan, when writing of conntry life in the "Express." He was riding a well-groomed hunter. "Well, how are things?" I asked him. "Nothing to boast about," he replied, "we've had a lot of wet." "How about the winter corn and the beans?" I inquired.' "They, look healthy enough." he admitted reluctantly. "And the stock ?" I continued. "Nothing wrong there," he said. "Young lambs ?" I went on. "I mustn't grumble," he confessed. "Had any sport ?"

'''Hunted three days last week," he acknowledged, "and I've had a few

days' shooting, but birds were very wild. And then, there's a lot of frost just now, and it spoils hunting." "Still, there are \vors3 lives than a farmer's" I suggested persuasively.

| '"I don't know about that," he pro- '. tested, " it's endless worry and | anxiety. "What with the weath r and the prices and the rest, it makes 'a man old before his time ! And to [ morrow hounds meet at Thaston, and I'm asked to shoot at Bro\- | ingham, and I don't know what I | ought to do. I can't manage botb. 1 You see, there's always something to worry about." So saying, my frtend the farmer, who can ride as straight to hounds as any kian in the county and stop as many rocketing | pheasants as most men, who has j never known an illness, and will never see the sixtieth birthday aga'n, I though he does not look to be within ten years of it, canjered off home i to pursue his miserable life as cheerj fully as the thought of his many I sorrows will permit.