El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-09-20

NA/ If a plan the secretary of Ag-
w ricuIture has on foot is as pro-
ductive of results as he hopes, the
country soon will know what the
farmers wife thinks are the draw
backs of the life she leads, and her
ideas of how these difficulties may be
overcome. There are $4,000 prominent
farmers in the United States through
whom the country gets its informa-
ton as to crop conditions These crop
correspondents are scattered through
all the counties in the country, and
are representative farmers in their re-
spective communities.
Eve have been getting thir views
on crops and other matters" reasoned
eacretarv Houston, land their views
have been of great value. Now it is
certain that their wives are as repre-
tentative a class of rural women as
they are of farm-operating men, They
must have some views on the needs
and the necessitis of farm life that
are valuable and some suggestions
that will be of great help, so we VIII
write to them and find out what they
think"
Writes to Women Folk.
Secretary Houston laid his plan be-
fore the men who help him with their
work of the department and they pro-
nounced it good. So a letter was
drawn up and is going forward to the
WomenfOlk Of the farm. In this letter
the farm women will be asked a num-
Der of questions to elicit the informa-
ton most desired, and they will then
be requested to add such other infor-
nation as they deem worth while, and
help their Uncle Sam to bring to
them and to their sisters the assis-
lance they need. What the depart
ment wishes mainly is not so much
mere criticism of existing conditions,
but rather, criticisms with suggestions
for improvement.
Nor is the recipient Of a letter re-
stricted wholly to her own experience
and conclusions She is requested to
discuss it with her neighbors, and to
bring the matter up at the sewing cir
Gle, the missionary society, or at the
meeting of any other sort of women's
organization of which she happens to
be a member. She is requested to
transmit to the department the views
of her friends as well as her own
Concerns Only the Women.
It is hoped by the department that
this will, in some ways, prove the
most far-reaching and valuable in
quiry into the affairs of the women
of the farm that ever has been under
taken 1t is an investigation that
concerns itself only with the women.
1t leaves the men and their affairs en-
have been numerous other inquiries
into country life conditions, the most
interesting of which was the work Of
president RoOseVelt's Country Life
commission. In addition to holding
hearings in many places, the commits
sion sent out about half million cir
cular letters to addresses supplied by
the department of agriculture, state
experexperiment stations and farmers
societies. The letters went to farm
ers, physicians, ministers, members of
Women'S clubs, rural free delivery car
riers, and other people foremost in
the average farming community. To
these about $4,000 answers came
Some of them contained a great deal
of information and many helpful sug-
gestions.
The TrObuIe in Missouri.
A farmer from Missouri wrote that
he was the father of II children and
that he and his wife were each 50
years old He was the owner of $50
acres of land not an acre of which was
encountered He wrote that few farm
homes were what they should be be-
cause OF the mortgages that were over
them; that the education children were
getting at rural schools did not attain
its purpose; that there was "a little,
one-horse grange in his community
but that every darned member thought
he ought to be a king" that renters
seldom made a good living because
they spent too much time hunting a
better job; that there was a scarcity
Of labor because the people had gone
out of the baby business: that sanitary
conditions were not satisfactory, cit
ing that in the wall of one neighbor's
well he had counted seven snakes, and
that the farmers wife had died since,
leaving him to look for another.
Making Buckle and. Tongue Meet.
There are perhaps 15,000,00O wives
and daughters of farmers in the
united states. They nearly all work
hard, even in Welltodo families. In
some places this is the result of feel
ing on the part of the farmer that all .,
hands must work to make buckle and
tongue meet-and there are tens of
thousands of farmers who have to face
these conditions. IN other places the
"omen1oIk OF the farm must work be-
cause the ambition Of the farmer and
MS wife is TO leave all of the members
or the family a modest patrimOny in
property and a valuable one in in
dustry and frugality. No people are
SO provldent as the farming class. The
hand TO mouth existence that chariot
erlzes the average city dWeller does
not appeal to the farmer; at all hazards
ne wants to leave something FOR his /
children Then there Is n very large
class of farmers womenfoIk who have
10 work simply because they cannot
get help The working girl goes to
INC CITY and taxes shop girls job at
low wages or a servants place where
the duties are light There is conse-
quently no help to be had.
here is man who owns a $4,000
farm. He married the daughter of a
man who owned three or four such /
farms. They have six children, the !
Oldest ID; there are three hired hands |
10 cook for. They have six or eight !
cows to milk and the milk and butter /
TO look after, two or three hundred /
chickens to feed, a garden to attend |
70 Help IN the house cannot be had 1
lot love or money; the cannery, the !
sIlIrl factory, and the city job has TAX !
en- away all available help. So it is I
Work. work, from four o'clock in the I
mo nlng to eight at night for all hands,
IN doors and out; the farmer is wor-
IIed 10 think that his family must
work this way, but there is no other
way except to sell out and buy small
farm or go into some other kind of
BUSINESS. There are tens of thousands
u farmers with this problem.
and the farmers son. Here is a
representative farm, with 200 acres, so
mead Of cattle two dozen hogs, a flock !
OF sheep, and 16 or 20 horses. 1t IS
winter. At five o'clock in the morning
alI hands get out. The boys take their
lanterns and go to the barn. One Of