The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-03-09
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director,
Washington, D. c.
WOMEN AS FARM IABoRERs.

Washington, D. c.. March "a
'fWoman's Land Army has recently
been organized in New York state, with
view of relieving the farm labor
shortage anticipated this season. The
women of this army are to be organ
lied into gangs of about ten members
each, which, under the direction of
! a supervising manager. will go from
farm to farm in the fruit-growing and
truck farming sections of the eastern
states and help the farmers harvest
their crops. There is ono condition
attached to this feminine aid, how
ever. The women must be guaran-
teed suitable living accommodations.
This is the first movement to sub
stitute women for male laborers on
the farms of this country, and has
brought forth wide diversity of opin-
ion as to the merits of woman farm
labor.
Inevitably, there will be a great
scarcity of labor on the farms this
year No special exemptions from the
draft have been made in the case OF
farmers, while the high wages prevail
ing in industry are drawing more ana
more men away from agriculture. Stlil'
the popular tendency seems 10 be TO
solve the problem in some other way
than by the substitution of women.
Prof. w, ]. Spillman, formerly farm
mana cement expert of the department
of agriculture, now at Cornell uni
versity, is of the opinion that female
labor could be used on the farms with
good results. This season l expect to
see at least 10000 women taking the
place of men on FARMS he predicted
a short time ago. "It is estimated that
nearly 40 per cent of the young men
drafted will come from the farms.
Male labor is already scarce. Women
will be needed to help harvest the
crops
On the other hand. other authori-
ties are emphatic in their opposition
1 to such a measure. Miss Helen w.
! Atwater of the Department of Agri-
culture and a member of the Woman
| Committee of the Council of National
| Defense declares that the substitu
| ton of women for men on the farms
would not only be an unnecessary
but a tremendously expensive answer
to the labor scarcity problem.
I'VE have not yet reached the point
where such a measure is essential" she
| asserts. In England it is, even tho it
costs much to place a woman in the
| agricultural field in England as it does
to send a soldier to the front"
In the first place, Miss Atwater says,
women are not born farm laborers-
| they have to be trained. In England,
for instance, they have to be taught to
milk cows, to handle farm implements
and to do the special tedious work of
| the diaries; all of which takes some
time. Six months of training are not
enough, in some cases, to convert
woman urbanite into a farmer.
In the second place, living condi-
lions on American farms are usually
anything but compatible with the
needs of women 1aborers. At most
farms when the hired hands arrive in
the busy farming season, they are
compelled sin the popular phrase of
the street, Ito shift for themselves"
The farmers wife does not get out her
best silverware and china and linen
sheets to welcome them. She works
from morning until night preparing
their food, but that is about all she
can do. The 1aborers sleep in the
barn, in the hay NOW or in hastily
constructed beds of hay and blankets.
Ask the average farmers wife to
house a gang of ten women workers
for week, and she would most likely
collapse on the doorsill. THE only
thing you could do" said Miss At
water, would be to build or rent
temporary accommodations for the
women workers, and one woman
would have to be taken along as
housekeeper, to take care of the cook
ing, laundry and other necessary fac
tors of existence"
This is somewhat the plan that the
new woman's land army of New York
state has in mind. They believe that
training women for agriculture is
more useful occupation than training
them to shoot, and that when the time
!
labor is being felt-suitable living con-
ditions for the women workers will
be forthcoming either from the farm
! ers themselves or in the way of sub
scriptions to be used in the erection
| of sleeping quarters.
In Great Britain, where the employ
ment of women on the farms has long
since been accepted as a necessary war
measure. classes in milking. cheese
making, poultry feeding and light
Co. IL Goo Nf vii
i lage, town and estate. Local farmers,
as a matter of patriotic duty, have
| loaned their cows and horses for such
| instruction; the agricultural colleges
| board women farm students in their
dormitories, and courses of farm in
struction are now offered by numer-
| Gus counties.
| The United States at present is not
| in iminent danger of being reduced
to the difficulties in which Great
Britain found itself in the spring of
1916, but we should take care not to
make the same mistakes. Apparently,
| the German U-boat maneuverS were
| not anticipated at the beginning of
the war, for England let her food
production diminish to an alarmingly'
small output before she-realized her
/ danger. The whole country became
/ aroused. The soil. much of which had
| lain idle, had to be treated, and other
remedies instituted, before food pro-
duction could be restored to a normal
| basis
Since the majority of the nations
| farm hands had been sent to the
| trenches, there was nothing to do but
! to ask the women to come to the
rescue. Women of leisure, who had
never done anything more strenuous
I than to knit stockings and caps for
] soldiers, enlisted for farm work along
, with women workers of the cities
milliners, shop girls and domestics.
But at first, this voluntary aid was
not appreciated by English farmers.
| They were dubious about hiring girls
| who had never seen a COW, who did
| not know beets from carrots, and who
! could not handle horses. So the
! government offered to train the girls.
| A girl was sent to a certain farm.