The Springdale news., 1918-08-09
TRAINING FARM FOR WOMEN.

Many News readers Will douDtlesS be interested in the following letter, received by J. NJ Cookson of Spring dale from his granddaughter, Miss Edna Hudson, giving description of her work at the Illinois Training Farm for women, located at Libertyville, H.:
 Illinois Training Farm, July 2o.
 Dear Grandpa and Grandma: I've intended all summer to write to you but rarely have an opportunity for writing letters. My life on the farm here is a very busy one. The rising bell rings at 5:30 and in fifteen min utes we must be dressed and report to our respective tasks such as feeding. milking, and putting things In order for the days work. For while my lob was to feed and water the little chickens (we have three hundred white leghornsl and keep their yard 1 in order. Now l am on the horse shift and must help curry, feed, and har- mess.
 Breakfast comes at seven and We I have a little time afterwards to make cur beds and straighten up. The manager puts up a schedule Of assign ments for the days work and at eight we begin. We quit at 11:45 and eat dinner at twelve. then rest until l:3o Our rest period is usually followed by a lecture and then work, until 5:45. Supper comes at 6. After supper most of us are busy finishing up chores or taking a shower bath. Quiet and bed at nine. Part of the girls sleep at the house, part in the stalls of the new horse barn, ard part m tents in the oak grove. l was in the barn at first and am now in tent with another girl whom everyone cills Teddy.
 Altogether there are fifty women or the farm nov including the manager, Miss Corvin, the house manager the garden manager, and the animal hus- bandry manager who just cane th's week. We have one hired man, Char lie. 2 Lithuanian, whose family lives on one corner of the farm. Charlie does some carpentry and odd jobs.
 For a over month man of sev- enty, Mr Spicer, has been with us. He volunteered his services, brought his own tent and many tools and helps out in the workshop showing the girls how. to do odd jobs Of carpentry work and the right way to use and sharpen tools. He Is genial and handy and general favorite Ne will be glad when he comes in from his week end tonight for the gasoline engine that pumps our water is broken and no one has been able to fix t. We have 132 acres on our farm with about 100 in cultivation. Our field crops are wheat, corn, oats. barley. sor@hum, and buck wheat. We have considerable hay twenty eight acres Of timothy and smaller fields of alfalfa, red clover, and swale Then we have two truck gardens and a kitchen garden. We have eighteen cows, 3 calves, s horses, l sheep, ? pigs and bee hives.
 The farm was given for our use, during the war by Mir. Ames, a retired dentist, who has made a great amount of money on patent filling. He had bought a number of old farms here and has been. amusing himself with farming The farm he gave us is a beautiful site but badly run down and overgrown with weeds, hence scarcely profitable to him. He had built g large and beautiful barn and two slos on it last fall. No practical farmer could have afforded such lay cut with such a low yield. He has beautiful buildings on his other farms, Htoo. all out of proportion to the value of his crops. His farming is pastime not paying business. He spends a large part of his time riding around on beautiful horse followed by two Airedale dogs He has been persuad- ed to equip one wing on his barn here for a dairy and when that is finished the girls will learn cheese and butter making. At present they are using the old barn which they have white washed and put in good sanitary con- .dition. 4 dairy expert came in May and started the girls and since then they have run it all alone Nearly all the girls here have served term in the dairy. l haven't yet because l want to take that last. The girls do all their own cooking, dishwashing and housekeeping under direcion of the housekeeper Each girl has to serve two weeks on that Besides we are doing considerable canning; all We can manage with our equipment. After supper we frequently have bees, she'll ing peas and such things 4 number of girls working together relieves the feeling of drudgery. We all get dread