Evening star., 1943-01-03
100000 Farm Women Help
Combat Monpower Shortage
Join in Program
To Assure Food
For War Effort
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.

BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.
Farm women are pulling together
on war work and successfully fight.
ing their battles in making the lano
produce the agricultural goals sci
up by the Nation" declares Miss
Grace E. Frysinger, senior home
economist of the Extension Service
of the Agriculture Department.
Just back from the heart of the
agricultural West, she is enthusi-
astic over the determination OF
Americas farm women to help win
the war by their efforts on the farm
front.
Many farm women and girls, ac-
cording to Miss Frysinger, have
taken the places of sons, husbands
and hired men who are fighting for
their country. They are doing prac-
tically every kind of farm work
In every part of our country.
A special Agriculture Department
survey on the, farm labor situation
indicated that employment of
women in agriculture has increased
more than 800 per cent during the
past two years.
1,20O,000 at Work.
Approximately 13 per cent of all
workers on 4l,000 typical farms in
the survey were found to be women.
Two years ago women made up only
1.5 per cent of all workers. This
would indicate that around 100000
women were employed as farm
workers compared with only 49,
600 two years ago.
Arizona women, for instance
helped with irrigation problems last
summer and fall. Women in New
Mexico worked in bean fields and
grain fields. Oregon women and
girls planted and harvested fruit
and beans, operated hay mowers
and tractors in addition to operating
air-raid warden stations in the
western part of the State on "a
hour schedules.
In New York, q woman who lived
near Springfield, finished a dairy
testing herd improvement course at
the New York State College of Agri-
culture on the day her husband was
called into the Army She took his
place as a dairy-tester for the No.
2 Herd Improvement Association of
Erie County.
Iowa women husked corn, painted
barns. built fences and ran thresh-
ing machines. Mixed in with the
herdsmen students in animal in
dustry this quarter at Iowa State
College may be ''herdsWomen." Orig
inally planned for farm boys 16
years of age or older, who have fin-
ished the eighth grade, this course
is being opened to farm girls for the
first time.
Can Surplus Food.
In the great farming and dairying
areas in the Dakotas, Kansas, Min
nesota, Michigan, Texas and Okla
homa. women have helped work out
the answer to the farm labor prob
lem. They substituted for unavail-
able farm hands in the fields and
helped put in" the crops. They
have also somehow managed the
double-barrelled job of running
their homes and canning, drying
freezing and storing, every available
bit of food, in order to release the
commercial pack for the armed
forces of the United Nations and
for urban families. .-..
I'm spite of their heavy home
burdens, they are still just as eager
to participate in the war effort as
are their city sisters, and those
women who go into war plants" !"
Miss Frysinger said. Given some
guidance and encouragement, their
combined efforts give amazing and
highly successful results.
Farm women feel strongly, too,
that the Government in washington
and their own local boards of State
management, should give more at
tention to farming as war indus
try.
The wife of a farmer about IA
miles from Topeka, Kans., told Miss
Frysinger: we hope something will
be done about putting as high
premium on farming as on industry
as a means to win this war, We
farmers will need a boost in this
direction to help us do our part
Our high school boy is a good help
to both his father and me on the
farm. He likes farming, too, and
wants to keep on with it. But his
two best chums have left their par
ents' farms and gone to nearby
defense factories at $40 a week. I
tell our son, to stick by dad and
the farm, because he will be giving
just as much service. But it is hard
for him to accept our advice on
this, with $40 week jingling in
his chums' pockets The best we
can offer him is $40 a month even
with the biggest crop we have raised
since we came here as young mar
ried folks"
Many Join Club.
During this past summer. accord
ing to Miss Frysinger, farm women
members of Home Demonstration
Clubs have numbered more than a
million and half" Their philoso-
ply, she says, is that the home is the
first line of defense, and in the home
the personal example is the best in
spiration to good citizenship. 'They
also strongly feel she states, that
if women are to be registered for
service according to ability. special
attention should be made to signify
each contribution, and not only the
dramatic ones"
From available tables of canning
figures for various States, Miss Fry
singer believes that a total of 300,-
100000 quarts have been canned by
rural women in Home Demonstra-
tion Clubs. More than 100000, 900