404 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



that is for the husband to furnish them with some of the modern 

 household conveniences. Some of the best houses of the coun- 

 try today, as I said this morning, we find elegant buildings, and 

 there are carriages and horses, and all the modern conveniences 

 for carrying on the farm work, but we go into the kitchen and we 

 find no conveniences ; the farmers' wives use the same things 

 they used twenty to thirty years ago. Where is the farmer who 

 would use the antiquated implements that were used twenty or 

 thirty years ago in the conduct of his farm labors? If the women 

 had labor-saving conveniences in the house, and had the kitchen 

 arranged so they would have many steps saved each day, they 

 would have a great deal more time for other things, and I am 

 sure if they had the time they would have the flowers and other 

 beautiful things about the home. 



Mr. O. C. Gregg: I want to shout an old-fashioned Meth- 

 odist "amen" to that, and I just want to say a word along that 

 same line. I want to give you a statement of my exeprience. I 

 hunted a long time to find a lady who could give me a detailed 

 statement as to how a kitchen should be arranged so as to save 

 steps. When I was at Buffalo this summer attending a meeting 

 of institute workers they said I had asked a question that could 

 not be answered; it was one of those questions for which it was 

 very difficult to find a perfect answer. My friend Bush referred 

 to dish washers. A factory in New York failed because they 

 could not sell their goods. They could not find enough women to use 

 them so it would pay them to keep up the manufacture, although 

 the dish washer was a splendid thing. Just think of it. Study 

 and formulate a system of housekeeping by which the present labor 

 and drudgery of the farm home will be lightened — and I hope the 

 next generation will show the farm women how this can be accom- 

 plished before they are forty years of age. You are planning and 

 aiming this afternoon to help this thing along. It is an important 

 thing, and I tell you it makes me feel sad when I find that fathers 

 and mothers are actually on all sides moving from their farm 

 homes into the towns in order to abandon the drudgery of farm 

 labor at home. I believe that the best place we have in America 

 to raise good men and women is the farm home rather than the 

 city. (Applause.) 



Mr. A. J. Philips (Wis.): I desire to say just a word. I never 

 realized the amount of work that the ladies could do when they set 

 themselves to doing it until I had several times visited Mt Vernon, 

 the burial place of Geo. Washington. Of course they talked some 

 time about it, and some wanted to remove his remains to Wash- 

 ington. The western people thought it was a great expenditure 

 of money. But the ladies went to work and raised money, and they 

 bought the whole outfit for $200,000. They went to work and re- 

 built the buildings, and now everything is in a good state of preser- 

 vation there. I endorse all that has been said here, but there are 

 two sides to all these questions. I take as much pains to please 

 the women as any man living, but I have heard a few things while 

 I have been at this meeting. I take it there are no farmers present. 



