Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-02-15

abe-bodied women. If they were really passed and
enforced in all of the states, they would reach the
two extremes of the social Scae-the idle rlch ana
the idle poor. The idle rich would be forced INTO
some sort of more or less congenial and POSSIBLY
useful form of activity. The idle poor would De
the net gain to farm labor In effect 1t would De
a CONSUMPTION of elderly hobos
One serious difficulty in this country is that
American women have never learned to DO farm
work Women have come forward in great va
rfety of other industries; their response to the
call of war has in general been admlrable-anu
sufficiently admired. But we have been unable TO
learn of any considerable number of women going
into farming The woman's committee OF the
Council of National Defense is known to be aware
of this need for women on farms, and to be work
ing the problem. 1t may be that it will offer
a solution although it will be difficult to train
women in time to be of use this year.
This is emphasized by the experience of Great
Britain. There women have gone long way
toward saving the farming situation. Even before
the war, there had been some discussion of the
advsability of training women for farm work, and
women farmers and farm laborers were not I'M
known. When the broke out, after the first
rush of munition-making, England found that Its
production of foodstuffs was failing for lack Of
labor. Then the question of women farm work
ers was taken up in earnest. The government in
stituted a system of training them by periods of
apprenticeship to farmers. Women are now doing
an important share of the agricultural work in
ngland In France and Germany they have done
an important share for many generations. 1t is
safe to say that neither of these countries could
have gotten along without the women to take the
place of men the farms. Thus it is seen that
women have saved the situation in every country
except the United States. 1t seems to be up to
American
Prof. w. ]. Spilman now of Cornell University,
who organized the farm labor work of the depart
ment of agriculture last year, prophesied that at
least thirty thousand women would have to take
the place of in the fields this coming sum-
mer. He also prophesied that they would do it
and fully able to do it. He asserted that
farm labor with modern machinery is not too
heavy a drudgery for women, that it is
heathful than much of the Industrial work into
which the has called them.
Only recently the farmers of Tidewater, Md,
served notice on the government that unless the
drain of labor from the farms to the factories is
stopped, food production must decline. The gov
eminent replied, in effect, that it must have mu
milton workers; that the farmers would have to
do the best they could.
That situation is that will surely spread,
will occur in many parts of the country the
crops begin to ripen. Improving agencies for
gathering men and distributing them is all right
as far as it goes; but there very few men to
gather and distribute Urging further cooperation
between farmers, and the Fuse of more machinery
are good expedients but they obviously do not
constitute a solution. The same may be said Of
CONSUMPTION for the lazy
Everything seems to point to woman the
hired of the future.