If the farming life was so wonderous, people wouldn't have fled to the cities for new and better opportunities. At least in Canada, farming in 1800s was a mise

If the farming life was so wonderous, people wouldn't have fled to the cities for new and better opportunities. At least in Canada, farming in 1800s was a miserable and hard life. I don't think work-life balance came to mind for the settlers, more survive or perish. edit: After posting I'm thinking of a couple of accounts of what farm life was like on Manitoulin island from back then. I can't get them out of my head so I'll write them here. The first is the story of a farmer who one day finds that some of his sheep have been killed by a black bear. Now he has do something about it because the bear will keep returning until he has nothing left. He doesn't own a gun because guns and ammunition are expensive, so he borrows a trap (which is re-usable!) from a neighbouring farmer. He baits the trap with the carcass of one of the lambs that the bear attacked and waits. The next morning the bear is trapped but alive. What to do? He doesn't want to leave it like that, and he doesn't have a gun to shoot it, so he elects to finish it off with an axe. In the farmer's account he really did not want to do that but said that he had no choice in the circumstances. He still could have easily been injured by the bear and felt lucky that he wasn't. The second account is of the local mail carriers. They were issued riles for self protection and in winter if they came across deer or elk they would shoot them and carry it into the next town in the wagon with the rest of the mail and parcels. The meat would then be cut up and distributed. It was noted that for many of the families it would be the only fresh meat they'd get to eat in the winter.