Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. 197 



< ' T-.^.-.T-.^m -rT/-i-»;r^" 



FOREST HOME FARM — MISS PEARLE MITCHELL. 



The farm which I, fourteen years ago, began 

 to manage consists of 320 acres, ten miles west of 

 Columbia on the Rocheport-Columbia gravel road 

 and two miles south of the old famous "]\Iodel 

 Farm" of Missouri. My father settled Missouri 

 land and we have the old government grants in our 

 possession. The house is perhaps eighty years old 

 and succeeded the first cabin built on the farm. 

 After my father's death I, having been instructed in 

 liis business, more or less superintended the farm 

 Miss Mitchell. ^^^ j^^y mother until she became an invalid. Two 



years before her death I assumed all control. Since then, from my at- 

 tachment to the old home or my desire for occupation as a definite outlet 

 for my latent energy, I have continued to farm. T raise corn, wheat and 

 hay, rotating my crops according to the demand of the soil. I employ 

 men and personally conduct the work or rent on the shares, always being 

 on the scene of action when seed time and harvest arrive. Between 

 whiles I travel or visit, but when farm business calls I respond. I have 

 cattle and hogs and am now trying sheep in a small way. I find corn 

 and hogs pay me best, and feed one to the other with best results. 



This year I am experimenting with corn on land half of which was 

 'two years in red clover and the other six months in stock peas, one-half 

 broken in the fall and the other in spring. The fall breaking far sur- 

 passes the spring in yield. 



When I travel I arrange to have only such crops as mature after I 

 return, and assure the interest of the tenant by. letting to him on the 

 shares. Last year, while nine months in the Orient and Europe, I only 

 had hay and corn which I rented on shares. I sold all the corn, stock, 

 etc., that was ready, closed the year's business, departed in January and 

 returned in September to attend to the corn gathering, fattening of hogs 

 and selling of calves. 



I have kept up club work. Am Vice-President State U. D. C, 

 President of Church Guild, and belong to several other things. During 

 Stephens' and Dockery's administration was Secretary and a member of 

 Board of Managers of Missouri Colony for Feeble Minded. I was one 

 of three special commissioners to Portland Exposition as hostess of Mis- 

 souri building under Governor Folk. I was sixteen months making a 

 trip around the world in 1903-1904. These things are not boastfully 

 given, but to show what one — even a woman — can do if she will. 



