Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1871-02-01
Farm Work for Poor Women.

We copy the following from an article
! by Gail Hamilton in the New York In
dependent
On the supposition that women want
work, various schemes are devised to fur
nish IT. | have heard talk of a plan which
is to supply women with small farms in
the vicinity of large city, which farms
they are to occupy rent free for a certain
time, at the expense of the State, and
whereon they are to support themselves by
raising small fruits for the market 1t is
found, L have heard alleged, that the poor
women will not 90 into the country, but
persistently cling to the city; and this de-
vice is brought forward as q sort of COM
promise.
One would be slow to oppose anything
which looked to the ameliOration Of pow
erty, lest haPly he be found to fight against
God ; but it must be confessed that wo-
men in the country who are wearing out
their lives with overwork, and their nerves
with the awkwardness and ignorance of
their Irish housemaids, look with GOODNESS
upon such a scheme. What right, they
say to the authorities, " Have you to tax
US to pay women whom we would pay
handsomely to assist US These women
object to going into the country. There
are few of us who would object to a resi-
dence in the city or suburbs But we are
obliged to live in the country and we
cannot see why we should be called upon
to release others from the same necessity"
These suffering countrywomen may be
right or wrong; but there are reasons
which seem to make such well meant plans
chimerical. In the very first place. 1t is
all wrong to suppose that farming, or even
householding, does not need brain. \
woman cannot raise strawberries by in
stinct, any more than she can make dresses.
OF the two fancy it would be far easier
to learn how to sew than to carry on a
farm with judgment To take a woman
from helpless poverty-and that is the on
ly kind of poverty we are speaking Of, for
poverty that can help itself is not poverty
to put such woman at the head of
house and a farm, without knowledge and
without experience, seems not only inju-
dicious, but Unwarrantable. She who is
not faithful over few things should not
be made ruler over many things-espe-
cially at other peoples expense. She who
eA1 nv S~A4S SAiOt-tis VI HlAAA At1 VI NAA~ANLi-
cy, or whatever you may call it, to set
herself to profitable work, in a country
where profitable work Is as plenty as it is
here, has not sense enough to be put at the
head Of an enterprise which requires so
much sense as does horticulture OF agri-
culture. Farms for women Why, it de-
mands science to drive pair of oxen.
Does not the Bible itself say that the OK
knoweth his owner and if that owner be
a nervous, unObservlng, unreasoning, un-
decided, inefficient woman, do you think
the OK will not speedily find it out More
over, though work in a garden looks light,
and even romantic, in the columns Of an
agricultural newspaper, | think it viii be
found more severe and more wearing than
work within doors. The flowers that grow
in print grow gaily, with scarcely the soil
ing Of Iady's finger in the cultivation
but the flowers that grow in gardens grow
under the old dispensation, by the sweat
of somebody's brow. How much more po-
tatoes and beets. That brow ought to be
a mans, even if the brain behind it be a
Something may come of setting
women at work in the fields; but DO not
believe the class of women whom it is the
intention thus to aid have the skill to man
age or the strength to till farm.