The Fargo forum and daily republican., 1913-07-05
Social Notes

In New Jersey, somewhere between
E''heah" and "theah" in the vicinity OF
MorristoWn and round about in the
Orange mountains, the Womans Col.
onizing bureau has purchased 1,0OV
acres of land on which to begin It's
! first experiment to prove that by ac-
During ownership of land woman WILL
take her rightful place among men,
as Mrs. Kate T. Woolsey, the presi-
I dent. is wont to say. This land IS TO
/ be parcelled out, 1t is understood, IN
plots of two acres or more on Wnlcn
the bureau will build house and sell
at cost to individual women VINO VIII
pay in yearly instalments until at the
end of six years, they own both land
and building, Although brothers and
husbands and fathers may live in this
=! colony, only women may sign the con-
: tracts and own the property. When
this plan was first talked about
and the bureau put an adver-
/ tisement in the papers, asking now
many women were interested in gong
/, "back to the farm" thousands of an
swers came pouring in from California
and Florida, as from the city dWellers
hereahouts. The greater number hailed
from the Bronx, Brooklyn and upper
Harlem-the fiatte'd lands. All or them
seemed to have a vague longing TO
get out and away but few OF them
knew what they would do when they
were there. They harbored the idea
that this would be the Utopia of which
they dreamed, the land to which one
could escape from things that are too
much" But the organizers warn all in
quirers that this is neither a get-rlch-
quick scheme nor cure-a -all-merely a
practical scheme of cooperative llV1ng
whereby the dwellers in an agricultur-
al colony would get the advantages OF
Ia
wholesale bargaining at the same time
as they might be enjoying the ex-
clusiveness and privacy of their own
estate and an opportunity to earn
money. One of the most enthusiastic or
the many interested in the develop
ment of the colony is Miss Leonora
King Brokaw, once boss farmerette on
Mrs. Belmont's suffrage farm, which
had a sudden beginning and end at
Hampstead, l. l., year or so ago:
Though Miss Brokaw is now employed
in an office down town, she still hanK-
ers after farm life and 'ff this scheme
works out, I shouldn't be at all sur
prised to find myself part of it-rais-
ing chickens, roses or or dogs dogs, pethaps' r. }s
but so is everything else. Are you ever
sure of a position anywhere? No one
should go into it, surely, who means
only to dabble in a little Of everything
for a while. You've got to pick your
specialty and stick to it. even If 1T
seems to be failure. And you've also
got to make up your mind that you
have to get up early and work late and
ache like anything when you first be-
gin. Also you need capital, for farm
ing is usually loss before it's busi-
ness. But it does pay, If you go
about it in the right way. Unless you
produce the very best you stand abso-
lutely no chance ON the market" IF
a cooperative colony could bring
the railroads to terms and make the
marketing Of the produce profitable 1t
would be doing a great good-the
greatest good possible, for at present
the single farmer can do nothing" says
Mrs. J, v. Gillis of New York, who
hopes some day to shelve a board
ing house for a farm. Have you ever
seen the apples, the fruit, the corn and
other vegetables that lie around in the
country to rot away because 1t isn't
worth while and because it doesn't pay
to ship them? And then. have you
seen the people here starving because
they haven't got those things that are
going to waste elsewhere? That's all
wrong. isn't it? 1t is hard for women
work in the business world. They
are indefatigable and faithful and what
do they get for their labor? How
very, very few ever achieve anything,
attain anything that gives them per-
sonal satisfaction? If they have a
small farm. they can do as they please
with it and live as they want. How