The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1883-09-08
Girls on a Farm.

And what has already been said about
out-of-door work for girls, the question
comes up whether any have ever tried to
manage whole farm.
Yes, one of the best managed and best
paying of the smaller farms in certain
rocky New England town, is at this mo-
ment owned and is being carried on by
two maiden women, sisters.
Their father lost his property when
the younger was thirteen, and after that
he hired farm, taking it on shares; but
he seems to have made bad trades, was
unfortunate, and though he changed
about from place to place. did not better
himself.
Meanwhile the children scattered as
they grew old enough to take care of
themselves, the boys eventually settling
in life and having families of their own.
The three girls went to cotton factory,
where they worked until they had laid
by money enough to buy small farm.
One died, and the two Others took her
earnings and put with their own, and so
were able to accomplish the sacred pur-
pose of all those years OF toll, aud secure
place which should be a home for their
parents, now getting along in years.
It took nearly all they had to pay for
it and buy some cattle to stock it with;
80 they were not able to hire q man to
help, and it was clearly the duty of one
to work out of doors with her father,
while the other cared for the honse.
The very small sum they had left they
day." and then and there they began life
anew, owing no man anything, and re-
solved never to be in debt The mother
was feeble, and the father not very
strong, SO there was enough for these
two brave girls to do. Dorothy stayed
in the house, attending to the dairy and
general work; Rebecca went out with
her father into the fields, helping plant
and hoe and do the haying and harvest
ing; and in winter she took all the care
of the barn to save him from exposure.
AS he grew older. more and more de-
volved upon her, and for the last eight
years of his life he did nothing at all
The farm has sixty acres, ON orchard a
pasture, fields for tillage and moving,
and piece of woodland whlch supplies
the family with fuel-just enough land,
and none to spare. They do not have TO
buy wood. hay, grain, fruit or yegeta.
bles. They appear to have selected wise
ly, and their little ''place" is all they
could ask for.
This last year they raised thirty bushels
of oats, fifty bushels of corn on the ear.
and thirty bushels of sizable potatoes be
sides many small ones suitable for feed
ing out to the COWS. They dried one
hundred weight of apples, and sold over
one hundred pounds of butter, having
on hand at the time, they told me, =
hundred and twenty-five pounds, wait
ing for rise in the prloe. Besides they
had some profit from eggs; and they had
boiled down two barrels of cider ready
to be used in "Shaker apple sauce"
These were the cl ief items. The hay is
fed out onSthe place.
They keep four COWS, and generally
find the dairy part of the farming the
most profitable. Their butter is so nice
that it always commands the highest
price. ''We have to plan according to
circumstances about our produce" said
Rebecca, land watch the market as men
would"
Neither of them has ever held plow or
driven, moved or reaped, but they have
done nearly all other kinds of farm work.
They hire man to do the harder part
And they ask the advice of some expert
enced neighbor of the other sex, about
''laying down" piece of land, and the
rotation Of crops" They manage care.
fully, and sell what they have to spare.
They have now spent by far the greater
part of their lives on that sunny little
farm in the hollow, and are getting to
be elderly women.
They have more than they hoped for
"a home for the parents, who both lived
to be over ninety, and who had no cares
or debts after these flial daughters took
matters in their own hands: and they
have had good living, and are better
off than when they began. For, besides
owning the land and the modest house
with its substantial and well-kept an
tique furniture, they have considerable
money out at interest, "enough to carry
them both through"
They have common purse so far as
their mutual interest is concerned, but
if one wishes to buy book, or subscribe
for newspaper, or go on q journey, she
uses her own money. They have lsbored
no harder than thousands of women who
have nothing to show for it, while they
have prospered in every way. They are
sound-minded and intelligent, and have
the respect of every one.
TneY were healthy and cheerful, and
il is q pleasure to talk with them and to
see their snug home, with its cosy out
buildings for the cows and pigs and
poultry, and the picturesque bit of gar
den and orchard, and the outlying
fields.
Such is their simple, true story; and
why cannot other girls who have laid by
a few hundred dollars do as we'll?
Another woman in the same time has
done even more than these. She has
had the entire care of farm of one hun
dred acres for twenty years-the old
homestead of her family where she was
born and brought up.
In her youth she learned a trade and
worked in shop, but the confinement
was injurious 20 her, and so she went
home and began to help her father In
the corn-aeld and about the hsying and