WOMEN FARMERS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 420, 6 August 1908, Page 4

WOMEN FARMERS.

Some of the women farmers of New Zealand deserve to be immortalised, as no doubt they should be in other branches of life. The farm labour, however, which many of our women have to undergo, out of sheer necessity in order to keep the financial pot boiling, or perhaps only simmering, is almost in one way a degredation to femininity. In the course of years a woman working hard upon a farm loses many of the charming attributes of her sex, but as a set-off she gains tons of self-reliance. She becomes masculine in character and in stature, her hands become gnarled and muscular, and her face loses ils softness and gets tanned. There is no time to spend upon her hair or the frills and fudbelows of fashion. The whole business resolves itself into a matter of self-imposed slavery from early dawn till late in the night. These reflections are prompted by a case which I saw where the breadwinner was a woman who worked the place for her husband, who was an invalid. The children were grown-up, and had drifted to many places, and the old couple were alone, save for a pair of fatherless and motherless grandchildren. The farm was one of only a few acres, running two dairy cows and a very small orchard. If the head of the house had not worn skirts, one would not have known that she was a woman. Her face and bent figure told their tale of years of toil, and perhaps misery. The two very sharp eyes which peeped from beneath her old felt hat were an indication, howover, of her vitality. She carried a reap hook, and told her story simply:— ‘T am just cutting a little oats for the cows,” she said. ‘‘You see they must have something now, when feed is so scarce. I sow a quarter of the orchard with oats at a time, and so I have always a crop coming along. No, I cannot go on to a larger area, because I have rehumatism very badly, and can only do a little work at a time. Cannot dig; not enough strength in my arms. How do I prepare the ground for the oats ? Oh, I just chip the earth with a hoe, and then scatter in the oats. They do not come up very well, but enough to feed the cows. No, 1 have never had a holiday; that is at least for twenty-seven years. I don’t want holidays now; I just want God to preserve my health so that I can work for my man and myself, so that we can end our days in our old home, and without any help from the charitable institution.”

This woman, providing forage crops for her cows, is an object lesson to many a dairy farmer on a large scale.—Wairarapa correspondent of the Dominion.