Missouri Women Farmers' Club. 455 



Kelley of Devil's Lake, N. Dak., is recognized throughout the 

 state as one of the financiers and business managers of the day. 

 Another Mrs. Kelley of White Hall, 111., has built up a sub- 

 stantial poultry business, and I take if for granted that we all 

 know that some of our Missouri women have done equally as 



well. 



Great interest and enthusiasm was manifested, not only 

 by the press, but by the persons interested in the agricultural 

 world when it became known at Tulsa that such an organiza- 

 tion of which I have just spoken had been planned. Many 

 and great were the things predicted for the future of the or- 

 ganization. I trust that every member of the Missouri Women 

 Farmers' Club may be present at Wichita next October and have 

 a voice in perfecting a permanent organization. 



FARM LABOR IN OTHER STATES. 



(Ida M. Fischer, Shenandoah, Iowa.) 



One of the hardest problems the farmer has to face is that 

 of labor. And the problems of the woman farmer in this 

 regard are not different from those of her fellow farmers. The 

 conditions with which I am most familiar are those that prevail 

 throughout the corn-belt states, and it is to conditions of farm 

 labor in these states that I shall confine myself. 



One way or another, every farmer manages to get along 

 with or without the labor he needs. Many a farmer is obliged 

 to give up his plan of farm management because he is unable 

 to get as much or as efficient labor as he would like. Many 

 farmers are changing from the one or two-crop systems to a 

 system that includes cattle feeding, sheep feeding, hog raising 

 or dairying, so that having efficient labor they can keep it em- 

 ployed with a profit the year round. With corn, wheat, oats 

 and hay only as principal crops, there is a great demand for 

 labor during June, July and part of August, with a lull until 

 September, when fall plowing and the sowing of winter wheat 

 again increases the demand. In November and December — 

 corn-gathering time — comes another period of demand. From 

 that time until spring opens the grain farmer has a period of 

 comparative rest — a period in which he perhaps employs no 

 extra labor at all. On the other hand, the combined grain and 

 stock farmer or feeder finds it necessary to keep at least one 

 extra man for every 160 acres. Even with such an arrangement 



