WOMEN FARMERS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1200, 13 November 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

WOMEN FARMERS.

Among various suggestions as to women’s work, one was made a short time ago that they should turn farmers and market gardeners on a small scale. In America the woman farmer is a reality, not a mere suggestion. Here is the description of one from the “Lewistown Journal. ’* Just before dusk (the writer commences), on a Wednesday evening, a brown-faced

and pleasant looking woman, with a short well-built figure and firm step, fastened a plump, contented-looking bay horse in front of a grocery store, and tossed a molasses jug out of the waggon. She wore a widow's veil and shawl. “ There,” said a gentleman,

“ is one of the most wonderful women in the country, Mrs Osgood, of Minot Centre, the woman farmer.” When Airs Osgood came out of the store, with her strong arms full of purchases the opportunity was too good to be lost, and the representative of the “Journal” began to ask her various questions. “ How much hay will you cut this year?” “Twelve or fifteen tons,” she answered. “ I've cut about six tons already. I commenced mowing about seven o’clock this morning, and mowed most of the forenoon. I spread thirty-five common stacks of hay, and after dinner I got in four good one-horse loads in season to get down here at four o’clock and market a lot of berries.” “Ho you cut your hay with a machine or a scythe ?” “ Both ; I can mow either way. I have a one-horse mower.” “Ho you have any help?” “ Only what I get from the children. There’s a girl of fourteen years, and a boy of eleven years who help me a little.” “Is the girl going to make a fanner?” “I want to make a fanner of her, but she don’t like the idea very well. ” “ How much of a farm have you ?. I have now near about forty acres. I have planted this year half an acre of onions, two acres of potatoes, and three-fourths of an acre of beans, and sowed half an acre of oats. I have done all the work myself. I have run the farm five years, and I have not paid out one cent., not one cent, for help, and I am not going to either (with much emphasis). Last winter I went out in the woods, and cut and teamed out ten carts of wood.”

“ Does your farm pay well ?” “ Yes; it’s beginning to pay pretty well now. 11 was all run down when 1 came there and commenced work. It only cuthiy enough for a cow and a horse. Nowit cuts twelve tons. Seethe difference I I have dug out the roeks and levelled off the fields with my own hands, so I shan’t be thrown out when I ride my mowing machine. I keep two cows, a horse, and a lot of sheep, and there arc a lot of hens running round.” Mrs. Osgood then started Dobbin fox’ home. Truly, a wonderful woman, who finds time between planting hei' acres of oats, potatoes, beans, and onions, mowing si dozen tons of hay, chopping ten carts of wood in snow knee-deep, and all the hard work of running a forty-acre farm, to take care of the milk of txvo cows, make butter and bread, and do all the kneading, cooking, and sewing on of buttons for a family of children, and yet has nothing to say about woman’s wrongs or woman’s rights. Farming for ladies in England, especially nowadays, would naturally never pay in the same manner as in America; but even if it would we question many women being physically capable of doing such work as Mrs. Osgood describes herself doing. Still, she deserves to be belli up as an example of what can be done by a powerful, energetic, self-helpful womanfarmer, who is not above putting her hand to any and every sort of work.