The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-22
Women Going In
 For Agriculture
ONE WOMAN IN NORFOLK. CONN, HAS DONE SURPRISINGLY WELL IN MANAGING THE BACK TO THE SOIL MOVEMENT.

Women are the leaders in the "Back-to-the-soiP' movement and there is possibility that at no distant date there will be a great many large farms in this country presided over by women. The matters of the farm and of forestry seem to interest wom- en at once and they are very success full when the results are considered.
 Probably" said an agricultural au- thority, 'it is because the women have more time to give, but at any rate they predominate in the courses of lectures on farming and the cara Of country places. l have given such courses in the drawing rooms of fn< 6uential New York women, whose in< terest was not only theoretical but sd how to do things with their own hands. A few years ago such course was given in Mrs. Abram Hew- its house and attended by such women as Mrs. Pierpont Morgan and her daughters and Mrs. W. K. Van- derbilt.
 After the lecture we went into . long reception room, where tables had been placed in a row. I had laid across these tables small nurserJ trees, one for each woman. They were to carry out the directions had given for pruning, grating and bud- ding. The proper implements were there for each of them. And befors I had gone half the length of the tables in my supervision all of them had done the work and done it deft1y and correctly.
 Columbia University has just completed a course of lectures on economic agriculture and all thesS women who had been here this morn- ing for advice in solving their indiv- idual problems have attended those lectures. One of them, the wife of a well-known New York surgeon, hal done really remarkab ble work up N Norfolk, Conn. She attended somt lectures I gave last year and brought a stenographer to take complet{ notes. Afterwards she asked me fl she might use these reports in somf talks to the farmers up there and gladly gave my consent.
 "She sent out a sort of general in- vitation to them to meet in her house thinking that perhaps twenty of thirty of them might come. Instead there were about eighty. She got along all right with the talk because she had the steographer's notes.
 But when she had finished thf farmers began to ask questions ans to many of them she had no answer So she wrote to me and begged me tf come and talk to them myself. l went. So did everybody else, think from miles around. Farmers and city people who own places up there simply packed her house.
 ''The interest was so great that shs offered prizes to be awarded last fall, for corn. potatoes and hay. The ex- hibits were to be shown at the golf club and she thought there might be as many as 20. Instead there were fully 500 and the place looked like c country fair.
 ''As a result she organized farm ers' club which started with 200 mem bers There will be more talks this spring, and I predict that in a very short time the agricultural product or the town of Norfolk will have increas- ed 100 per cent.
 "She came to see me this morning to consult me about a project, started bv another woman, for the develop ment of a, tract of 15.000 acres In c Southern State. The idea Is to divide it into small farms for women, wno1 will do specialized work and who wiu have the advantages which go witH organization while at the same timt heinz independent owners l haven examined the scheme closely yet, ous I should think it promises well. Philadelphia Inquirer.