Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1919-07-09
ON The LAND
The Farmerette in Real Life.

One of the leading agricultural au-
thOritieS of Great Britain, Sir A. ID.
Hall, writing of the position of women
in agriculture, says that the war Gre
ated a new situation and large num-
bers of women have gone to work cul-
tivating the land and have taken their
share in normal farming nowadays in
Great Britain.
Sir A. d. Hall states that many of
these women who took up farm work
in order to free men for war service
find the life so congenial and so full
of promise that they are determined
to make a career of farming, and the
| problem is how to provide them with
| that career in view of the fact that
| the majority of them have little or no
capital, and that farming, like any
other business, cannot be entered upon
without the expenditure of a certain
amount of capital
He also points out the difficulty of
securing farm land in England today.
The disabilities that women farmers
in the older countries labor under do
not apply to New South Wales for va
riOus reasons.
In the first place there is no scarcity
of farm land under the State Govern
ment's policy of closer settlement,
whereby most of the big holdings have
been cut up and thrown open for
small purchasers.
In the second place the Government
encourages the settler by making ad-
vances toward the purchase money
and by other financial concessions,
and thirdly, well-equipped Govern
ment training farm for women is es-
tabfiShed in the heart of the State, the
Cowra district, about 220 miles from
Sydney.
At this farm students go through a
general course of farming which in
cludes blowing and pig-raising, as well
as the more feminine arts of bee-keep-
ing vegetable growing, horticulture
and dairying, and when they have
graduated they are fully qualified to
run farms of their own and it is to
be noted that most of them do acquire
farms, in preference to working on the
farms of others.
Some of the girls who served their
apprenticeship at the COWra farm are
going into business in real earnest
with certainty of good livings and
the prospect, given good seasons, of
making substantial fortunes.
Two of these students are settled
| I'd in M oil Nr
near Gosford a picturesquely fertile
portion of the State about 80 miles
from the metropolis. One of them is
war widow who is bravely facing
the future with her hand literally on
the pillow. Both women can handle
horses like a man and one of these
pioneers, in ridng-breeChes and coat,
did turn Of craftsmanship at the local
show recently which brought out the
superlative masculine praise summed
up in this comment at the ringSide,
"She's been on q horse before"
The orchard run by these farmer
cites consists of Is acres, mostly I'M
der citrus fruits and vegetables. A
little creek runs through the property
fringed with the brush which Is so
picturesque in that district. Vegetable
and fodder crops are raised near the
creek, Il little gas engine making irri-
CATION possible. Some of the vege-
tables are sold locally which saves
freight, and regular consignments are
sent to Newcastle by rail, 80 miles dis
tnp of No of
a large vegetable exhibit from the Ma
rara farm took first prize.
In addition to fruit and vegetable
growing these farmers keep a few
pigs, which are fed upon the waste
vegetables and windfall fruit, so moth
ing is unused and the pigs fed in this
way bring a high price in the market.
At their work the farmerettes may
not be as alluringly clad as are their
prototypes in modern musical come
dies who fit around the bayfield, in
coquettishly short costumes and up
turned hats, but they are by no means
unpicturesque in their buSinesSlike
boomers, smock blouses and wide
brimmed hats, and they are healthy
and happy-looking women.
, They can plow all day, milk cows,
do carpentry jobs and anything else
about a farm that Il man can, and
what is worth mentioning in this neu-
rotic age, have forgotten the meaning
of nerves.
One of the farmers was a profess
sional singer before she went to study
farming; now she only "sngs as the
linnet sings because she must" for
sheer contentment with pleasant
healthful career which promises fu.
ture of boundless prosperity.-Adv