166 ANNUAL REPORT OP THE Off. Doc. 



help make a cheerful home and comfortable hoii.sing for the family, 

 but her importance to the community of which she is a part. Let 

 her learn of her city sister social worker that some of her life should 

 be devoted to the welfare and social uplift of her own neighborhood. 

 She should help build up the appreciative qualities of life; she should 

 use her influence to counteract the narrowness and the habit of pay- 

 ing attention to trifles that our rather isolated and individualize.! 

 life has developed in us. She can do much to make her associates 

 feel that as farmers daughters they are part of a large social class 

 that has worth and dignity, that their work is honorable and their 

 future promising, and that the country has attractions that are 

 peculiarly its own, and together they will discover and enjoy them. 

 She should see that good reading matter is in circulation; such 

 reading as will keep the neighborhood well informed on all the 

 political, religious and social topics of the day, that there will be 

 no dearth of interest in the conversation of the social gatherings, be- 

 cause these topics will dislodge all personal matters, or a desire for 

 small talk. Such an influence in a neighborhood will have a ten- 

 dency to give an uplift of soul, and a sense of joy and satisfaction 

 in life worth the striving for. 



In this Country Club Organization the girl learns to work to .syf«- 

 tematically and scientificially. Take, for example, the raising of 

 tomatoes: she will learn to manage a hot-bed, or cold frame; she 

 will learn the best type of tomato to grow; how to plant, cultivate, 

 spray, fertilize, stake and prune. She will learn something about the 

 soil she has to deal with, and the length of the tomato season; she 

 will learn how to harvest her crop, how to sell, and the best method 

 of preserving her surplus crop for winter use. Finally, she will learn, 

 in forming her little booklet of 'How I Made My Crop," confidence in 

 her own abilities; she will learn expresion, acuracy and neatness. 

 Painting the title page will bring out any artistic tendencies she may 

 possess. After such a training as this, no girl wouNl want to go 

 back to the old slip-shod, haphazard way of doing things; her mind 

 has had a discipline which will enable her to choose what she shall 

 do, to concentrate lier tlioughts upon her work, and to use her in- 

 tellect as well as her hands to such advantage that her work cannot 

 but be successful. One of our humorists has said, "Nothing suc- 

 ceeds like success." She will find this true. 



The giving of prizes in this Country Club work is a most com- 

 mendable thing, as it not only stimulates a girl to do her best, but 

 can be made a means of further education. Cities are becoming 

 each year more interested in the work of the rural communities, en- 

 couraging the workers by arranging places of exhibit, supplying 

 money for prizes, and in every way possible co-operating with the 

 federal agents in the advancement of the work. Among the larger 

 prizes are trips to the State capital or to Washington, and what 

 country girl would not like such a trip, when they are housed in the 

 best hotels, taken to places of historical interest, to theatres and 

 through the various government buildings? A year at a State Col- 

 lege is also a prize worth contending for, as that would mean a 

 course in Domestic Science, or any branch of study the girl may 

 choose of the studies furnished by the College. Last year fifty thou- 

 sand girls were enrolled in the Garden and Canning Clubs of the 

 United States, Tbipk of t]iQ niiinber of girls made happier in them- 



