The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-05-21
WOman's Work on the Farm.

A good deal is being written and said
about the amount of hard labor incident to
the life of farmers wife. and our agricul-
tural exchanges are plethOric with letters
from such, pitched in all keys, from the
fault-finding drudge to the happy. content
ed mistress of farmers mansion. Ii Will
not be denied that the labor indoor upon
the farm is often more trying TO the health
and patience of farmers wife than that
without is to her husband, or that the end
less and unbrOken round of kitchen duties,
that knows little of variation year after
year, is wearing in the extreme. In the
first place. a wife's disposition has prob
ably as much to do with the ease or difficult
ties of her toll rs any one thing; and. II
one is constantly disposed to be complain
ing and fault-tinding, the work will be
tedious. regardless of how little there is to
be done. a happy and cOntented wife will
make light of her work, however much
there may be of it. But aside from all this
there is one thing in which we must say
our farmers wives are at faults and of
course the men must come in for their
share of the trouble. There are hundreds
of valuable improvements being made
every year in the methods and means OF
doing housewOrk which ought to be in
cOrpOrated into every farmers house In the
I d..
MED. for some unaccOuntable reason, en-
trance and employment there. We know
of farms which are provided with eXpen-
sive moving machines, when the women
folks are still compelled TO draw ali the
water used by the family with an old
fashioned hook. There are other thrifty
farmers who use n seed-drill, but whose
houses are ignorant of the blessings Of
sewing machine. The women folks go
through the Mondays washing just rs
their grandmOthers did and break their
backs over a rub-bOard, never dreaming OF
a washing machine, while the husband Is
eniOving himself by riding his sulky plow
through the rich soil. SO we might go on
and give other illustrations of the uncOuth
way in which many farmers wives do, eth
er from desire or cOmpulsiOn, much of the
drudgerv of the farm work in doors.
While this is all wrong, the ladies them
| selves are to blame for it. There are few
farmers who would deny such things in
| the house if their possession were insisted
| on by their wives, and. while we have
never been able to see the question Of wO-
mans rights in exactly the same light it
presents to the optics of some of It's
| champions, vet there is no doubt woman
has the same inalienable right to the pos
session of a sewing or washing machine
| that her husband has to a cultivator or
/ hOrSe-rake But we are told that women
are disinelined to use new inventions, and
prefer to 90 on i'm their old ways to en-
| blowing easier methods of doing their
work. There is a fair share of truth in this
| statement. The agent of a really valuable
washing machine told the writer not long
since that the hardest place to sell his ma
chine was among farmers wives in the
country, and that they looked at him
when he stated his business as if they
wanted to set the dog on him." and yet he
'.fOund more than three-quarters of the
| farmers houses destitute of any cOnven-
! fence of the kind" Now there is way of
| taking things easy without being lazy or
| shiftless-a way of doing large amount
of work without sighting or neglecting it.
| But to do it there must be both order and
| system. even in the details of the work,
and the employment of labOr-saving ma
chimes to assist the work of the hands. We
| do not believe in such means to do more
work but to do it better In this we think
most Western farmers are at fault, from
| the fact that they use their machines to
cultivate more land rather than to cultivate
better what they have. SO we would all
wise farmers wives to employ the sewing
machine not to add to the tiOunces and
frills on their dresses. but to employ it to
save time and furnish respite from the
drudgerv of household toll to be devoted
| to reading and mental culture If not used
in this way it may as well as not be filled
up in the endless round too long the rule
| of the farmers kitchen.-ErehaHge