The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1918-05-18

reports the woman's committee OF
the Council of National Defense,
was looked upon with considerable
distrust by farmers last spring. Many
girls applied for work on farms,
but what most OF them were offered
was work in the kitchen and farm
house. Girls who were unwilling
to take up housework considered
their efforts to be considered Sc
riously as farm hands.
Some of them solved the diff
Guilty by forming units 10 go, with
their own cook and housekeepcr.
into localities where they knew
there was a demand for their ser
vices. A unit would rent an old
farmhouse, or whatever the girls
could find in the ne;ghborhood, and
go out daily to farm or orchard
where they were employed. By this
method the farmers wife was saved
trouble and the girls were sure oi
pleasant surroundings and compan-
ionship.'
in New York state, the commit
tees report continues, one group
OF about o5 young women - the
Mount kisco unit-made the eN-
pertinent in Westchester county.
Though they met with general skep-
ticism at FIRST long before the sum
mer was over the demand tor theiI
work was greater than they could
supply. Their leaders made con
tracts with employers, charging -
cents an hour for girls work and
paid the girls SIS month and eX-
penSes. Another unit in New oTk
organized under the womanS COM
mittee, was put on seli-governihg
basis. The girls elected captain
hired a cook, and paid 81 cents each
per week for general expenses. This
unit worked altogether on truit
plantation. Next summer there
will be demand for many more
girls.
I'm MARYLAND units have been or
ganized for fruit packing and can
ming. The work pays fairly well anu
is both patriotic and physically good
for the girls.
Dean Virginia Gildersleeve, OF
Columbia. sees in the unit farm work
system great opportunity for ser
vice and benefit for the working girl
in employments that are slack III
the summer months.
Real study and training in farm
ing is also to be had by women IN
a number OF new places. Last sum
mer Miss Alice Carpenter chair
man OF the New York branch OF
the Navy League, opened in Farm
ingdale. Long Island, a military bar
racks for women to learn farm work.
More than 100 women, from every
class and trade, joined the camp,
and less than dozen quit before
they had completed the course
Many are already placed on farms
others have gone back to their ordi-
nary work, ready to serve when
needed. One OF the women said:
came here to render a service, but
have received great gift.
The Vassar College farmcrettes
spent a summer in learning the ru-
diments OF soil cultivation, and some
are now holding important positions
imparting their knowledge to other
women.
The situation in the United
States does not yet make 1t wise TO
encourage women to go to work Oh
the land in the wholesale way IN
which thev have been obliged to do
in England; in fact, our agricultural
conditions are so different that II
never may become wise. Never
theless in certain kinds OF intensive
agriculture, like fruit growing and
market gardening, there undoubted-
" will be an increasing demand Tor
women's labor. The woman's COM
uittee of the Council OF National
Defense in some OF the states where
there is such a demand is consid-
ering plans to organize and tram
girls for this work. At present TINS
seems the best solution for making
women replace men, where that step
proves necessary. in the important
,york of food production