The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1905-07-21
KANSAS NAN IN FRANCE
W. Y. Morgan says Il Looks Funny
TO the Short Grass Citizen.

=
France is a picture. Seen from q
car window It is a succession OF fields
and villages, at this time Of year, a
continuous combination Of greens and
white French farms are small I
suppose twenty or thirty acres is a
big place and many are much less
than that But the land is fertilized,
drained, irrigated and worked to the
limit The people live in villages and
not much on their own farms Each
village has q common pasture Dur
ing the day the farmers go out onto
their little places and in the evening
they return to town to spend the hours
with their neighbOrs and friends. The
houses are all white stone with red
tiled roofs and the villages are num-
erOus, one every two or three miles in
every direction A farm Of twenty
acres is divided into strips for vari-
Gus crops, so that the landscape is
striped with the fields Of wheat, al
falfa, potatoes and grass, which seem
to be the popular products Cattle
are not so numerous, but sheep are
plentiful, goats abound and hogs (al-
ways white that I have SEEM are on
every place. A strip Of land a hun
bred yards wide in wheat will run
across the twenty acres, and the next
strip will be some other crop, making
the hues OF green vary The most
extensive crop beside grass is grapes,
and hillsides which in our country
would be considered too steep and too
stony for cultivation are covered with
vines Nature is like the French, ar
| tistic when she has a chance, and
i the combination produces a beautiful
| effect Coming from Paris to Mar
| settles through the valleys of the Seine
and RhOne, it was 500 miles Of con-
/ tinuOus agriculture and pretty towns
I Do you wonder il looks like a picture
/ with the villages Of white houses and
| red tops, the fields and hills Of green
/ and the rivers like ribbons running
/ here and there?
France Is ahead Of England and
| Ireland in this point; Nearly every
/ French farmer owns his own place,
\ even If it is small. In Great Britain
/ the big landlords own the land and
/ rent it to tenants. oIn France the
! farmers, or peasants, as they are call
4 ed, are landlords Of their own If it is
/ small The French nobility lost their
i possessions and they were bought up
by the people A French farmer does
| nOt'have the opportunity to make him
/ self a large land proprietor. He can
work all his days and only hope to
| accumulate a little place and enough
/ to take care Of him in his last days.
But ne is able to do that and it has
been almost impossible to do so in
1 Great Britain
The farms are separated from each
i other by high stone walls In driving
| along the highway these walls shut or
| the views Of the fields and you have
/ TO get up above the walls to see the
! picture The stone walls are the evil
| dence that the land is the property Of
| the owner The grass field is enclosed
! by these high fences and the gates
| are locked at night as if they were
| afraid somebody would steal the
| land It looks strange indeed to a
/ tourist from the land Of quarter sec
tons and barbwires-
Every Frenchman has to serve in
| the army three years. This is not
militia service, but regular sOldiery.
| 1t takes three Of the best years out
/ Of a yOun mans life. OF course it
gives some compensation in the way
| OF discipline and in continental Eur
| Ope every nation has. to keep its pOck-
cts full Of rocks and its people ready
for war with the neighbors. A repub-
| lie cannot neglect this matter any
more than a monarchy, and France
loses a great deal by the withdrawal
Of its young men from the producing
class during time when they could
be very useful.
In the fields men and women work
side by side. The women Of France
have plenty Of rights They can pillow
or rake hay all day long, and then
| they can indulge in the recreation Of
! homework in the evening. This is
harvest time and on nearly every
farm I saw the whole family at work,
not with reapers and mowers, but
with good sickles and hand rakes.
The women seem to age earlier than
in America, but this fact is true wher-
ever have been outside Of theUnited
/ States
That reminds me Of a mistaken no
| ton I had before coming here I
thought the women OF the United
/ States were more active in a business
way than the women Of other cOun-
tries, and had progressed in taking
| hold Of what is generally called
mems work more than the women
/ Of Europe. That is a mistake. Pro-
| pOrtiOnately women have more to do
with business in England and France
than they do in America Nearly all
| the hotels in Great Gritain are man
aged by women. Shops, stores and
Offices are filed with women. The
| fact IS the combined labor Of husband
and wife is necessary among the
| great, plain people TO get enough to
support the family, and in Ireland,
England and France this is taken as
a matter Of course. Especially in
France do I find women managing
business and doing so with the skill
and success which show that il is
neither new thing or a side Occupa-
ton In America it is generally ac-
cepted that a man who can do so viii
take the brunt Of the work and a wO-
man viii find her time fully occupied
with housekeeping. And there is also
a widespread practice Of raising the
girls to sit in the parlOr while their
mother washes the dishes That is
not the way they do in France A
young woman is brought up to expect
what she will get-a young man whom
she viii have to help, or they viii go
hungry There are not many chances
for a young man to get ahead fast
He has no reason to believe that he
viii be better fixed than his father or
his grandfather was In fact in
France a boy usually follows the Oc-
cupatiOn Of his father. so that a fam
| lily for generations viii be farmers,
shOpkeeperss shoe makers, etc. In
L. he