The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram., 1913-03-17
BY I. L. TOTEM.

BY I. L. TOTEM.
Women never were better home
managers nor did they ever do more
toward supplying the needs of the
home than the farm women Of today.
Things that are beyond our reach al
ways seem best. That is one reason
why things of the past seem better
than those of the present.
If it were possible to bring from
out the past one of the old farmsteads
intact and set it down side by side
with a farmstead of today, what would
we find in the one of today that did
one of former days?
From the standpoint of sanitation,
OF light, of cheerfulness, or real rest
giving, or from any of the many 9TH
er standpoints, the farm home of to-
day IL far ahead of the old homestead.
And our modern farm women have no
reason whatever to bend the knee to
their grandmother's superior intelli-
gence, because it is to the modern
women who have brought about these
changes in the homes of today that
are conducive to better health and
happiness.
But" some one says, 'our grand
mothers did so much more and knew
SO much more than the housewives of
the present"
1t sounds as though there might be
truth in the statement just because it
is about the past; but let us do away
with assertions and get down to facts.
Doesn't Spin Now.
On a three hundred acre farm in
farm neighborhood where l am well
acquainted, there lives family, con-
sisting of husband and wife and five
children. The good wife does not spin
nor weave, but If her ability to do
other things indicates anything, I be-
lieve she could-in three days time
learn to spin and weave as we'll, if not
better than her grandmother who
sucked an old clay pipe or "annointed"
herself with snuff as she sat bumped
up throwing a shuttle back and forth
in a dimly lighted, poorly ventilated
loom room.
When garments of any kind are re-
quired by members of this family of
which speak, the good wife takes a
basket full of eggs-the product of a
| profitable flock of pure bred fowls,
that she gives her personal attention
together with few pounds Of butter
and some garden truck in season, and
exchanges them for the required gar
! ments. And from the proceeds of her
poultry, cows and truck patch, SO she
informed me, she buys all of the gro
ceries for the family, clothes herself
and the children, buys her husbands S
work clothes, and saves about twenty
five dollars year besides.
Did the women of the past accom-
plish more than this?
Where She Saves.
They did much in their way, but
the farm women of today accomplish
just as much, yes, more in their way
| and with less drudgery. The modern
farmers wife goes about her work
more intelligently than her grand
mother did. She has learned many
grandmother days. The farmers wife
does not use crooks and pans for the
purpose of getting the cream from the
milk; instead, she has cream sepa-
rator which saves her hundreds of
steps and many dollars.
She gets out into the garden in the
fresh air, and with the returns from
her work there, together with the but
ter and eggs she has to sell, she is par
ticularly able to keep the family.
Through the summer this woman
| takes care Of a small garden which
she makes thing of beauty. She does
not have her garden plated into small
| beds as was done in olden times, but
she plants everything in straight rows
the full length of her garden. This
method not only utilizes every foot of