Evening star., 1915-11-21
WOMEN IN FIELDS
AS MENFOLK FIGHT
Crops of France Almost Wholly
Harvested by Wives and
Daughters.
HEAVY FARM WORK
OF ALL KINDS DONE
Acreage of Country But Little Less
Than Last Year and Burden
Has Been Great.

Correspondence of the Associated Press
| CLERMONT-FERRAN Central France.
October 26-The women of France have
gathered the crops this year. while
their sons and brothers have been
fighting at the front, and they are
big crops. Tho harvest is just closing.
the barns in this vast farming region
are fairly bursting with wheat, oats.
hay and multitude of farm products.
and the fields are stacked with the
straw-covered yield Of potatoes. car
| rots. beets and vegetables of all kinds
all these crops are tribute to these
Spartan peasant women of France who
in a way, are fighting the country's
battle just as much as the men in the
trenches.
For three days correspondent Of
the Associated Press passed through
800 miles of this farming region, un-
der escort of army officers assigned by
the ministry of war, primarily for the
purpose of seeing the thousands OF
German prisoners gathered in from
Champagne and elsewhere, but Incl
dentally giving the opportunity of
seeing these French peasant women
cultivating the fields, driving the oxen
for the fall blowing. pisking. sorting
II
the stores of vegetables and tobacco.
Women were to be seen everywhere
bending over the burroughs or with
panniers on their backs carrying the
heavy loads OF carrots and turnips; on
top of straw-ricks pitching the grain
into place or loading it on wagons:
in the freight yards near the stations
bringing in the farm products and stor-
regular companies along the roads at
night going home from work with their
dogs, wheelbarrows. babies and armfuls
Of fagots.
Large Type Of Women.
In one thirty-acre field Of turnips
Ave sturdy matrons were at work and
one young woman, with an old gray
bearded peasant, evidently the father.
in a chair under a sheltering tree with
the baby beside him. He was too old
for the fighting line or for this other
warfare Of the women in the fields.
Further along a great sweep Of fields
was dotted with knots OF women gath
ering potatoes into bags. and then
throwing the filled bags over their
shoulders to carry to the waiting carts:
Each group OF women had a yoke of
oxen and cart. They were heavy-set.
are-built women. like those painted
by Mi1let. with coarse aprons and
black dresses girt up to their knees.
usually bare-headed. but at times with
the big white headgear typical Of this
Auvengne farm country.
On one large farm party Of women
was putting on the fall fertilizer be-
fore the winter set in. Some were on
the carts hauling in the manure. and
scores of others were scattered over
the black earth leveling and distribut-
ing the fertilizer. In another field one
woman alone was doing the fertiliz-
ing. and a sweep of about ten acres
showed what she had accomplished.
The next farm had already yielded its
crop Of corn, and now the women were
gathering the pumpkins from between
the close-cut eornstalks. The bodies
the regularity of a windmill as they
picked up the big pumpkins and
heaved them up to other women stand
ing on the carts to receive them.
Military Forces Pass.
Several times along tho route there |
was q picture Of the army Of fighting |
men on one hand and tho army Of |
working women on the other. when a |
detachment of artillery or cavalry |
passed forward ON its way to the |
front. One artillery detachment had
heavy field guns. and stretched along |
the road for quarter OF q mile; another
had the light French mitrailleuse, or
rapid-fire gun.
At one point a whole division Of cav.
airy was encamped on q level sweep of
farm country, and columns Of troopers
were exercising on the field Of maneu-
vers When these detachments passed |
along the roads, all the women In the
fields would stop work and stand with
arms akimbo gazing intently at the
spectacle of their men going forward
case the women In the fields were the
wives, mothers and sisters of the men