New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-08-12
Woman $ | land Amy Fast
Winning Farmers Respect
Prejudice Breaking Down Nearly T. 5000 Demonstrate
They Are as Efficient Men; New Jersey
Leads All States in Numbers

with the 1918 crops we'll under way,
the question arises, ITO what extent
have the women Of America helped in
raising Americas food contribution to
the Allied cause this summerw
The Woman's Land Army Of America
reported to The Tribune on Saturday
that a conservative estimate of the
number of women engaged in the Of
fetal Land Army farm work would by
the end of the season total $4,000.
But as this number includes only those
women under the actual supervision Of
the Land Army, it is entirely made
quate to represent the agricultural ac-
tivity of American women For back
of these $4,000 are the hundreds Of
women who are working independently
on their own farms, or their husbands;
the other hundreds who have organ
lied emergency squads in their own
counties when wasting crops cried for
help, anil still more who are working
under the direction of local agencies,
food commissions or other organiZa-
tons.
Slow to Accept Women
Thousands sounds all very we'll until
it is remembered that England's
women farmers number hundreds of
thousands 100000 at the least. This
is Americas second summer of war
and England's fourth, and even allow
ing for that, the rate Of proportion in
relation to the respective populations
and the agricultural areas, does not
run true. Also, the farm labor short
age in America has by no means been
met by woman labor. In Kansas the
shortage was 10000, but the labor has
been supplied by the Department of
Agriculture with men released from
the draft and by other special arrange
ments, not by women, though several
thousand women registered in the
Land Army have been sitting on the
edges of their chairs waiting to be
called, and other thousands could
easily have been recruited if their SER
vices could have been used.
What, then, has been the trouble?
1t i3 another suffrage story, tale
of women who have wanted to do their
part and of men who have been un-
willing to accept them. In one case
it was the polls, in the other the fields
That is the only difference.
The farmers of the country and the
Department of Agriculture share hon
ors equally in their reluctance to let
women raise food for America. The
Woman's Land Army will tell you that
farmers receive the suggestion of put
ting "city girls" on their farms as a
pleasantly; farmer must have his
little joke.
The Land Army also admits that the
Department of Agriculture has been
extremely slow to approve Of making
a wholesale, nationwide business of
putting women on the land. 1t has
fo11 I'D
portation at length. Thinking in terms
of Western and ranch farming, it has
declared that women could not be
taken there, housed there, or used
there.
Usually Win in End
And so it has been pitched battle
wherever the women have entered in
They had their hard row to hoe, not
only when they were on the farm, but
before they got there.
But once there the battle is over, for
when women go farming they farm
and wherever one unit Of farmerettes
go others always follow. Unwilling
as any farmer has been in the begin
ming. he usually breaks down in a mat
ter of hours. AS one Pennsylvania far
mer told his new recruits after the first
day: II didn't banker after wimmen
on my farm, but might as we'll tell We
ye're the best I've ever met yet"
Women farmers have been used at
every conceivable kind of farm labor
The Land Army lists over thirty differ.
ent operations which their recruits
have actually engaged in steadily
Women are operating binders, running
tractors, cutting corn. and doing other
difficult work as regular part Of their
duties.
G. Howard Dawson, chairman of the
National Agricultural Society, has con-