250 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



tions, contributions to charity organizations, clubs, etc. If such 

 things are kept in this brief form it is not very difficult to handle 

 them. Of course in this case the classification of everything is left 

 pretty much to the judgment of the housewife, and this seems to be 

 a reasonable arrangement. These matters as discussed have to do 

 very largely with the economic side of the farm home life. 



Because the social feature has been so much neglected in the 

 past, and because so much effort must be put forward in establish- 

 ing a better social condition in the country home, we have also given 

 some time to the study of this feature. This would come under the 

 second expense account, which I have above mentioned. It is very 

 true that the farmer's wife has a long day and one of hard work 

 before her almost every day of her life, as conditions have been and 

 as some conditions will probably continue to be for some time. This 

 is partly her fault, and more largely the fault of the conditions 

 under which she lives. She has given very little thought to con- 

 veniences in arranging her home to make work easier, or, if she has 

 given thought to it, the profits of the farm have not been of enough 

 importance to allow the working out of her ideas as to the improve- 

 ment of the farm home in the matter of conveniences. She can see 

 that a water system in the home would save her a great deal of 

 work; she can see that a lighting system would take a great deal of 

 her burden away, yet the profits of the farm have been so small 

 that such things are out of the question in some cases. In other 

 cases she has actually been able to have these things from the farm 

 profits, but has been prevented from doing this because of the at- 

 traction of the additional profits to be made by reinvesting the first 

 gain. 



We have established a system of labor records for the farm 

 home in an eff"ort to show the farmer's wife how much time she 

 actually puts in on her work and also how much of this time might 

 be saved by rearranging her home. In addition to this, the labor 

 records will show how much time she puts in at different kinds of 

 work in the home. The kind of work which she does is of no small 

 importance. The woman in the city home usually puts in a full day, 

 but a considerable part of this day is usually spent in social duties, 

 recreation, etc., while the farmer's wife puts in her time at some 

 work which is far from being recreation. There ought to be some 

 kind of a definite relation between the kind of work a housewife 

 does and the efficiency of the farm in supplying the family living. 

 Perhaps she is spending more time on some things that are of less 

 importance and neglecting some of the more important things. 



