412 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



to me, since I started over to Iowa on yesterday afternoon, and since I 

 had been at the national convention a few weeks ago in Indianapolis, and 

 since I had been reading everything I could get hold of about the doings 

 of the farm bureau in this and other states, I found that farmers were 

 running for president, farmers were being elected governor, farmers were 

 being elected to the halls of legislatures, farmers were attending township, 

 county, state and national farm bureau meetings, farmers were serving on 

 seventeen committees or Committees of Seventeen (Laughter), and I found 

 it was going to be very difficult for mother and the girls to keep up with 

 father and the boys. 



I am sure that you will all agree that the very heart of our American 

 agriculture, as Mr. Howard has expressed it several times, is the Amer- 

 ican farm home, and it was a very gracious tribute, to me a very beautiful 

 thing, when the resolutions committee of the national convention at In- 

 dianapolis, at a time when the organization was straining every fibre to 

 formulate plans for the marketing of products, the distribution of those 

 great necessities of life, at a time when they were confronting these pro- 

 blems as business men, that the very first resolution that that dignified 

 body of farmers passed was a resolution commending the farm home and 

 granting to farm women a place in the American Farm Bureau Federation. 

 One of the very first things, it seems to me, that is necessary today for 

 mother and the girls to do to enable them to keep up with father and the 

 boys is a better, an improved system, in some way or other, of farm home 

 life. 



Now, I learned something at the national convention; I learned that 

 Mr. Thorne, whenever he wanted to prove anything, either read from the 

 papers that he carried in his portfolio or held up to view the paper to 

 which he referred; and so I learned that if you want to prove the things 

 I am telling you, you may do so by getting this little survey which I hold 

 in my hand that Miss Florence E. Ward of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture calls "The Farm Woman Tells Her Own Story," and you 

 v/ill say after reading it that I haven't exaggerated any of the statements 

 that I hope to make. 



It is true that there is a change in the method of farm women doing 

 their work since the days of our grandmothers, when a rude iron kettle 

 hung over the fireplace, with all the inconveniences that go with such a 

 means of cooking; but I have been on the lookout all over the land for 

 more convenient methods of doing my work, because, as Mr. Cunningham 

 told you this morning, I was not a farm daughter — I try to find easier 

 ways to do my work. In the furtherance of this plan, I was blessed with 

 an understanding and comprehending husband, who has been willing to 

 grant me, as far .as he had the means to do so, all of the labor-saving 

 conveniences we could afford, but search as I would I have never been 

 able to find anything which I might buy for the use of myself and my 

 daughter whereby we could do all of the farm housework efficiently and 

 quickly and ride around while we were doing it. (Laughter and ap- 

 plause.) I have said several times that about the nearest approach for 

 the farmer's wife and daughter to be able to keep up with father and the 

 boys along some of these lines would be to get a pair of good roller 

 skates. (Laughter). 



