FARMING SUCCESS.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 115, 7 January 1926, Page 6

FARMING SUCCESS.

WOMEN’S WORK ESSENTIAL. There is this about the farm —it takes Iwo to make a success of it. We think of a farm as fields, of buildings and of the menfolk doing the farm work. At the end 1 of the year the results are measured in terms of labour income and returns on the investment.

All splendid of course if there are dividends and labour income. But how about the women on the farm ? Are they included in the division of labour incomes ? The womenfolk work also in stores and factories and offices, often helping their parents or their husbands—and they are paid for their labour. . Should it not be so on the farm ?

If not, free labour gets into the production of milk and fruit and garden products, and this free labour is aside from the labour expended in running the homes, cooking the meals, looking after the garden and the chickens and doing a hundred and one things that comprise housekeeping on the farm. If it were not for this work that women do the farm would not long exist-as a going concern. Someway and somehow this class of labour should be included in the cost accounts of producing corn and cotton and wheat and milk and of every product made on the farm. This work is as much a part of production costs as is the work of a stenographer, typist or telephone operator. Furthermore, so long as that business exists, the women workers in it are paid their wages. These are paid before many other expenses are paid ; paid before any dividends are provided—and paid at current rates. HOW FARM WOMEN HELP.

I am not finding fault with anyone because the farm wife and' mother are not given a labour income, I am only bringing to account the part that farm women play in the production of human food and, saying that women’s work should be included in all cost figures that have to do with any crop produced on the farm. Unless this is done, the cost figures will not be true statements of all the facts in the case.

Women are the best part of the farm. Despite the fact that their labour is seldom measured, they keep on doing and l working- ; keep on encouraging and inspiring ; keep on making the farm homes the wonderful homes they are. It was former national master of the, Grange, in the United States, S. J. Lowell, who said : “ I have never known an unhappy farm woman.” A broad statement it seemed to me when I first heard it, but to save my life I could not either, in my wide acquaintance with farm people, think of one single unhappy woman. If there are individuals of an unhappy class, they are expert in hiding the facts from observation. WHERE TWO CAN WIN.

It takes two to make the farm, the farm home spirit. I would' not attempt to say which is the more important the man’s work or the woman’s work. It would depend, I think, on circumstances—on health, training, disposition and mental outlook. In some homes were it not for the cheer, the encouragement, the advice of the wife, there would come about a sorry mess of the farm. Women do more along these lines than is usually thought. They may not be masculine in their methods, but they are important factors in farm success.