No. 7. DEPAHTMEXT OF AGRICULTURE. 333 



making, millinery and all kinds of Land work. Economics both in 

 its general phase of the production of wealth and in its application 

 to the expenditures in the home is also included. The practical 

 nature of this work is illustrated by the fact that the students 

 are required to plan, cook and serve actual meals, the really elaborate 

 ones costing twenty-five cents apiece for each person served; the 

 less elaborate, furnishing all the necessary food elements, costing 

 but twelve cents a day for the ihree meals. 



Many a housekeeper of experience questions the possibility of 

 such meals, but the students at State College can do this, and have 

 the actual figures to prove it, since they are required to keep ac- 

 count of every cent spent and of the total nutritive value of each 

 meal served. 



One object in having this course at this, the Peoples' College of 

 our State, is to ti-ain teachers, and this iiieaus iliat you who repre- 

 sent various communities and school boards must be the next to 

 act. It is your province to see to it that these branches are intro- 

 duced into your rural schools so that ever}- girl may learn to keep 

 house not merely from her mother, but from scientifically trained 

 teachers who have made a study and application of the progress 

 of science as it aM'ects twentieth century housekee])ing. In the 

 kitchen as in the field we can learn much of practical, but in the 

 schools as thev should be to-dav, we can learn more of both theorv 

 and practice. If the next generation of liousekee])ers is to be 

 thoroughly efficient to cope Avith changinu conclitious. tlu* uii-ls of 

 this generation must be taught systematically. Then we shall recog- 

 nize that the cost of living is Avliat we uiako it. 



WOMEN'S SHARE IN AGKrCUJ/rUKE 



By MISS MARTHA VAN RENSSELAER, Cornell Unicersitu, Illiica, y. V. 



(This lecture was illustrated with stereopticon.) 



In prehistoric times men sought the woods for hunting and learned 

 its language. Women learned to till the soil for food and learned 

 her lessons from the nest builders and workers in clay. 



Man's first desire was for food. He laid his game at the door 

 of the woman and she learned to prepare it. She used the fruits 

 and vegetables within her reach. She was the first farmer with a 

 crude implement in her hand. She domesticated the cow and other 

 animals to aid in her efforts for food. She built granaries and with 

 crude implements ground the seed for bread and poiridge. She cleaied 

 the forests and learned the use of fire in pre[)aring her fields for 

 cultivation. She became as a beast of burden and trnnsported her 

 provisions to her dwelling and crude storehouses. 



Agriculture in ])rimitive days was beneath the dignity of men, 

 but in the keeping of the herds they took the lead while to women 



