thereto and not a net drain. Bare fields are also a prey to winds that carry away valuable soil. Fallowing, therefore, is a doubtful policy, except in the rare cases where irrigation is impossible, and a single year's rain by itself enables you to raise no paying crop, while two years' rain will suffice for this. In such localities fallowing might be wise. It would mine the land and at last ruin it; but, you would say, arid soil that cannot be irrigated might as well be robbed of its fertility and its top soil blown away once for all, and agricultural hope for the locality given up forever.

THE

CHAPTER V

HEALTH AS A DUTY

HE pairing of these words "health" and "duty" may at first seem queer, but we hope to justify it.

Some people hardly prize physical soundness for any reason. They seem literally to "enjoy poor health." Among such as duly prize health the majority probably prize it not because they think they ought to, but as an exercise of legitimate selfishness. Their desire to be well is reflex and spontaneous, not reasoned, not an affair of motives in any way. Like the will to live, it is neither moral nor immoral, but simply non-moral.

That merely vital, non-moral prompting to health is a fine thing. We would not lessen it. If it possessed the entire public in due degree these remarks would be quite superfluous. They might even be mischievous, for a natural impulse is not seldom weakened by analysis and introspection, as

a man may be made dyspeptic by studying stomachs. A house good for a century may be rendered rickety in every wall by picking out its original foundation to put in a new which is better.

We despise all mere fussiness regarding health as heartily as any man in the world. It is said that the distinguished English preacher, Robert Hall, when he was somewhat advanced in life, would every little while grab at various portions of his anatomy to make sure paralysis had not struck him. It is said on good authority that usually when paralysis actually does overtake a man he doesn't need to investigate.

Even physicians, wise as they are, sometimes take a shadow for a lion.

A curious document has been preserved in the archives of the Nuremberg-Furth railway, the earliest of the German lines, opened in 1835, which relates that on December 7, that year, a special "Kollegium" of the Bavarian physicians was summoned to discuss the medical aspects of "the new method of traveling by steam machines."

The assembled doctors arrived at a nearly unanimous conclusion that a too frequent use of rapid transportation would produce among the unhappy passengers an unprecedented increase of the malady known as "delirium furiosum." "Even if it be conceded," said the physicians, "that the travelers voluntarily expose themselves to this danger, and that the state ought not to interfere with personal liberty in such a matter, we nevertheless feel bound to advise, by virtue of our calling, that the state should at least interfere for the protection of the onlookers. We are confident that the mere sight of a steam locomotive dashing along at the extreme of its speed will be sufficient to produce this fearful malady in persons of a nervous and susceptible constitution. We therefore humbly advise the public authorities to require that walls shall be erected on each side of the railway track not less than 6 feet in height."

But moral and religious exhortation in aid of health should not be considered fussy. Every community contains ailing men and

women who are capable of health, yet rarely possess it for any length of time, apparently to a great extent because they never think of health as obligatory. Our words are for such. Many of the persons meant are in most matters highly conscientious, but in this particular their consciences are asleep, untrained, or seared. We would reason with those sinners, reinforcing whatever merely vital desire for health they may possess with appeals to their sense of right and wrong. Particularly would we attack the medieval vice, which still affects many who do not avow or perhaps suspect it, of supposing that we somehow elevate the spirit by snubbing and flogging the flesh.

It is our duty to possess physical vigor if we can, whether we delight in it or not. Unless that is a duty there is no such thing as duty. Health is within our power to a much greater extent than most suppose. Even congenital complaints can often be cured. Other troubles of the kind born with us, though not curable, can be greatly alleviated. In persons not diseased at all,