I08 NOTICES RELATING TO AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 



farmers for the service of women up to the last few months has been 

 due in the main to the following reasons : 



(i) The number of farm labourers exempted. 



(2) The fact that the shortage of labour has been largely met by : 



a) Release of soldiers. 



b) Release of school children. 



c) Increased use of machinery 



d) A lower standard of cultivation. 



(3) The unwillingness on the part of large numbers of farmers to 

 employ women. 



(4) The diflficulty of providing accommodation for imported women. 

 The housing problem in rural districts, alread}' existent before the war, 

 has been much intensified by the fact that the wives and families 

 of men who joined the colours have been permitted to remain in their cot- 

 tages. The result of this has been that the farmer has often been unable 

 to replace the men either by other men or by women. 



The work undertaken bj^ the woman worker on the land is of a diverse 

 character, and includes some occupations which do not in any wa3', as a 

 rule, fall witliin the women's province. 



The following is a list of occupations in which women have been and 

 are now engaged in various parts of the country : — 



I. General farm work — (a) cleaning land ; {b) stone picking; (c) weed- 

 ing ; (d) thistle cutting ; (e) manure spreading ; (/) singling and hoeing 

 turnips ; (g) potato setting and lifting ; and (/?) vegetable planting and 

 transplanting. 2. Milking. 3. Stock tending and rearing. 4. Butter mak- 

 ing. 5. Cheese making. 6. Poultry rearing. 7. Haymaking. 8. Har- 

 vesting, g. Sheep shearing. 10. Thatching. 11. Stacking. 12. Plough- 

 ing. 13. I.oading and unloading. 14. Threshing. 15. Fruit picking 

 16. Hop picking. 17. Reed stripping. 18. Bark puling. 19. Timber 

 felling. 20. Gardening — (a) jobbing ; (b) market gardening ; (c) domestic 

 gardening ; {d) cultivating allotments and waste land ; and {e) co- 

 operative gardening. 



The experience gained during the war goes to prove that some 

 women can do an>i;hing and everything on the land, and do it well, but 

 that the average woman is useful chiefly for occupations i to 7 and for 

 15, 16 and 20. In numbers 2 and 3 they have shown themselves very 

 successful. 



ITALY. 



1. THE INSTITUTION OF A NATIONAL, I^ABOUR EXCHANGE. — L'Umanitaria, Mi- 

 lan, No. I, 31 January 191 7. 



In order to provide for the placing of the labour belonging especially to 

 agricultural and public works, the demand for which occurs now in one and 



