The Butler weekly times. (Butler, Mo.) 1881-1918, 1909-07-08
WOMAN MISSOURI
FARMER.
Miss Pearl Mitchell Makes De-
cided Success and Plans Trip
Abroad.
tBy Ida b. Cole.l

IF crops are good and the price of
hogs continue to soar, will make a
trip to the Holy Land" said a tall,
handsome woman, whose youthful
face was framed in beautiful white
wavy hair. THAT is, as soon as |
have garnered and disposed of my
crops"
The speaker was Miss Frances Pearl
Mitchell, who lives at Forest Home
near Columbia, Mo-, one of the few
successful women farmers in the
United States. We are not accustom-
ed to hear woman talk in a business
like way of raising hogs and and get
ting in her hay. We have somehow
come to think of the woman on the
farm as forlorn looking creature in
a sunbonnet and calico wrapper and
there is just little surprise when you
see well gowned woman, a college
graduate, with social graces, and a
club woman, who is successful
farmer as well. And Miss Mitchell is
all that!
mentally contrasted her with the
indifferent sullen farmer woman |
met one day last week, whose Shout
ders were bent with toll and who
seemed to live in perpetual quarrel
with life, a weary lonesome drudge.
But this splendid woman who knows
all about crops and hogs and mules
and markets and has travelled around
the world, was revelation to me of
the woman farmer.
And after all it does seem that the
farm with all its possibilities is espec-
tally fitted as field for woman's ac-
tivity, since it is just housekeeping on
a big scale
81 am struggling with the problem
of getting clover hay into stacks be-
tween rains" said Miss MITCHELL
land the fast ripening wheat fields
bid me hasten. ! am proud of my
success. am not married because
love my liberty and my own way,
and my natural independence and
self-reliance make it easy for me to
follow my own imclinations. A love
of nature, free life and fresh air, with
a fondness for the old homestead and
desire to have an active occupation,
led me take up farming.
81 raise wheat and corn, cattle,
hogs and hay, and ! market the pro-
ducts to the local traders. person
ally manage and superintend my farm
in every detail and all my other bust
ness interests, and of course am
very busy. Nevertheless, l find time
to travel
my trips are long or short as the
balance sheet at the end of the year
iustifies. That is why am depend
ing on the price of hogs for my trip
abroad, and hope to remain long
enough to see the Oberammergau
play next summer. | spent one win
ter in California and another in Wash
ington, D. C., and of course | have to
get back in time for my spring plant
ing.
81 have managed the farm for four
teen years since my mother became
an invalid and years after my fathers
death. The farm of 800 acres was
purchased from the Government and
entered by my father, U. S. Mitchell,
ST., during the administrations of
John Quincy Adams and Andrew
Jackson. | love every inch of the
place and farming is wonderful OPP
portunity for women.
Miss Mitchellis a graduate of Steph-
ems College, Columbia Mo. She is
an active member of the Daughters
of the Confederacy, the Daughters of
1912 and also president Of the church
guild. am not a suffragette or suf-
fragist in extreme" she said, "but
| believe intelligent, property owning
women should have voice in the af-
fairs of state. | lam keenly interested
in politics"
Governor Stephens appointed Miss
Mitchell a member of the boardsof
managers of the Missouri Colony of
Predetermined and she was reap
pointed by Governor Dockery, when
she served as secretary of the board.
She was also one of the hostesses of
the Missouri Building at the Portland
Exposition and is quite as well known
in Jefferson City as in her home town
of Columbia.
Forest Home is located in a fertile
farming region on the Columbia and
Rocheport Gravel road and is an ideal
country home, filled with souvenirs