THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 133 



The one thing of which we may indulge in a Httle boastfulness is in the matter of hired 

 help. The first season we had two men most of the time from March to November; the 

 second and third seasons one man for the same time, with extra help for spraying, etc. 

 The last year good help was exceedingly difficult to get, the apple and pear orchards were 

 seeded to grass and clover, so there was less cultivating to do, and we had help for a scant 

 month, through the whole season doing everything ourselves, even to spraying with the 

 lime and sulphur solution. Heretofore we have sprayed with a hand pump, with a man 

 to pump, one of us to spray and the other to attend the boiler. But with the power 

 sprayer we feel perfectly independent of hired help, and can do it ourselves alone if we 

 must. Our spraying arrangements are very convenient and systematic, thus economizing 

 both time and strength. We know of no place of its size in our vicinity which has been 

 worked with so little help as ours. 



One of us works out of doors all the time, the other helps as she can, and we have a small 

 boy who waters and feeds the chickens and cleans the hen houses under supervision, but 

 who never misses school. 



You are no doubt more curious to know what our conclusions have been regarding 

 women as farmers than to hear these details of our efforts. We will first ask why should 

 they not succeed as fanners? The veiy heavy out-door work need not be too great an 

 obstacle; a woman may employ help for such work the same as a man, and it is high time 

 some one had courage to say that farmers are not the hardest worked persons in the world. 

 That is a fallacy which ought to have been thrown to the winds long ago, but which a cer- 

 tain class of farmers have always paraded, especially to their wives. Compared to the 

 physical w^ork, long hours, responsibility and nervous strain endured by us in our foirner 

 occupation, or compared to the work of farmers' wives, who bear their children, do their 

 own house work and help with picking and packing fruit, the farmers' work is far easier. 



In past generations men impressed upon their women kind that business was entirely 

 beyond their limited comprehension, and for countless ages woman accepted this as won- 

 derful wisdom, but that time has passed, and business men in other lines fully understand 

 and accept the fact that many women have business faculty, and furthermore that women 

 have a perfect right to work out their own financial salvation in their own way. The 

 farmer has clung to this ancient doctrine and held it over the heads of his wife and daugh- 

 ters longer than inost other m^en, but we predict that in another generation the man fanner 

 will find the woman farmer a worthy competitor. 



To such women as are worn out with the strife of work in great cities, and wish to make 

 a home for themselves and renew their health, gardening or fanning offers many induce- 

 ments. But they must firet have a fondness for growing things, be young enough to take 

 up entirely new work, old enough to have outlived the hide-bound conventionalities v.hich 

 keep so many women in bondage to their clothes and the pettj^ restrictions of activity, 

 and money enough to live upon until they learn how, and then when they are ready to 

 buy a fann they should secure by some means judgment to decide upon the question of 

 soil and market, and should have strength of mind to resist the temptation to buy too 

 many things the first two years, because by the time they have reached the end of the 

 second year they will have learned enough to enable them to use their money judiciously. 



In closing we beg to make a plea for the amateur farmers, both men and women. The 

 city reaches out and eagerly grasps the men and women who have had country training, 

 probably more than two-thirds of the great financiers, statesmen and scientists are country- 

 bred, and in turn the country has as much need of the city trained men who bring habits 

 of system, order and economy which the country needs. The farmer is too much inclined 

 to attribute his failures to Providence and the weather man. He is too extravagant of 

 his time, too much inclined to view his competitor with suspicion instead of feeling that 

 every added farmer strengthens the whole. No individual nor group of individuals are 

 sufficient to themselves alone, therefore the cities need the coimtry boys and girls, and 

 the country has need of the trained methodical city workers. 



We take this opportunity to acknowledge our indebtedness to both local and state 

 horticultural societies; without them we would have been hopelessly at sea many times, 

 but having had a wide experience in organization work, we were soon able to recognize 

 the members whose intelligence, experience and measures of success compelled the respect 

 of their neighbors. 



Horticultural societies differ verj' little from other clubs in that respect, such organiza- 

 tions always have a certain percentage of members who speak with authority, and certain 

 others who just talk, and when one learns to discriminate there is an immense amount to 

 be learned. To us they have been wonderfully interesting and profitable; without them, 

 I am sure we could not have continued farming. 



