New-York tribune., 1918-08-21
Conference Opens at AL
bany to Discuss Means to
Increase Food Production
Gerard Will Speak
F Farmerettes Declared to Eek.
eel Men Under Agricultural
Labor Conditions
Especial Dispatch to The T,1bune)

Especial Dispatch to The T,ibune)
ALBANY, Aug. 20.-With the in
dorsement of President Wilson as an
encouragement the upstate conference
Of the New York State Women's Land
Army opened here to-day. Some of
the best known agricultural experts in
the state took part in the discussions,
the purpose of which is to place on
the farms larger army of women
during the war to take the place of
the men fighting in France and to in
crease their efficiency in farm work.
At present there are one thousand
women in the land army, divided into
forty units, but next year it is
planned to have such a land army that
there will be unit in every farming
community. 1t Vas declared that this
will encourage the farmers to plant
more acreage, a thing they have al
ways been willing to do if they were
assured they could get the labor.
After the conference it is intended to
start a membership drive.
The success of the Woman's Land
Army idea was shown by the admis-
sion of many agriculturists who have
employed farmerettes that women,
properly trained, are in many kinds
of work equal to men. Officers of the
conference declared that they had the
testimony of farmers that women
show more cagerness, more patience
and more endurance under heat than
men.
Opposes Overalls
efficient farm workers was interest
ingly presented by Miss Edith Diehl,
director of the Wellesley College
training camp for land army super
visors. She favors the standardizing
of the land army work, conducting it
along military lines far enough to
make it uniform She is now making
observations to bring farm work for
women down to a scientific basis.
"Women have got to do farm work
in place of the men as a war neces-
right from the beginning" she told
the conference. She believes that skill
in women can be made to take the
place Of strength in men, and is MAX
ing a scientific study of the best way
of bringing their muscles into play
and of the length Of hours which
women should labor. She is decidedly
opposed to overalls for women, calling
them ugly and unserviceable. "There
is no need of our being frumps just
because we are in this work." she said.
She is inclined to favor knckerbock
ers, but said she is working out
garment which she believes will be
best suited for farmerettes.
Governor Whitman, in welcoming
the delegates, promises the support of
the administration to the land army
movement. He declared that he repre-
sented all departments of the state
government in Offering assistance and
encouragement. He congratulated the
women upon what they had done and
commended them for their plan to ex-
tend the army so as to make it meet
all requirements in all agricultural
sections of the state
The conference will continue to-
morrow, when the former Ambassador
| to Germany, James w. Gerard, will be
the principal speaker
Women Must Feed World.
With the plea that "two and one
half million people are still starving
in TIE war zone" Miss Sophia Carey,
Of the National Land Council of Eng
land put the food problem squarely up
to the women of America in her ad-
dress before the conference this after
noon.
"The time has come when American
women must feed the world" said
Miss Carey. "Thc world is hungry.
Your sisters and their babies are dy-
ing, and thousands of acres lie idle
around the big ports and cities of
New York State that could just as
easily be producing stock if not suit
able for crops. Farmers all around
are crying for labor to harvest crops.
Will you turn the farmer down. let the
crops rot and remain unsown next
year and let the people over there con-
tinue to go hungry? Or will you, too,
link up with the land armies over
seas and fling into the fields the big
gest land army ever gathered in the
worlds history? 1t means intense eff
fort, it means lavish donations; but
it means also life-life to millions Of
starving people. And it means com
plete defeat cf the enemy's plans for
hindering the war, for there is no mis-
take tina. food will win the war"