Ii8 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



they immediately write a check and lo! it is theirs. A great many of 

 these things our men buy are used but a short time during each year, 

 but give the women ranges, kitchen cabinets, linoleum-covered or 

 hardwood floors, sanitary walls and wall covering, washing machines, 

 iron bedsteads, good water, and things of use and a comfort to every 

 member of the family every day in the year, and very few of the things 

 are any more expensive than the price of a sulky plow. Our reasons 

 for asking these things are that we believe that with better homes 

 there will be less divorces from the farming districts; our boys will 

 like their homes better and continue on the farm; and our daughters 

 will not be so anxious to work in the city and will not say, 'Any kind 

 of a man but a farmer, and anything but a farmer's wife and the same 

 old things that mother puts up with.'" 



"Ignorance of value of foods is evidenced by the unhealthy and 

 puny children of many farming districts. Farm women should be 

 taught how to economize time and strength in performing their house- 

 hold duties, how to prepare simple, nutritious meals, well cooked and 

 as well 'balanced' as the 'rations' the farmer is taught to feed his 

 stock." "It is like the old saying, 'A woman can throw more out of 

 the window with a spoon than a man can bring in with a sack.' Only 

 i per cent of the left-over food is ever used. The laboring class of 

 whites (in Georgia) use two and one-half times more food-stuff than 

 the negroes of the South and have one-half less to eat, for the negroes 

 generally prepare their food in good shape with great saving to them- 

 selves." "Some form of indigestion and the resulting physical dis- 

 orders are universal. Much of their earnings goes for doctors' bills 

 or patent medicines, when intelligent and correct housekeeping would 

 remedy it all." 



30. POOR STANDARDS OF CONSUMPTION AS RELATED 

 TO HOUSING 1 



BY HARVEY B. BASHORE 



When we first began to investigate this subject, it was hard to 

 believe that real overcrowding existed in the country districts, but 

 the more the subject was studied the more the fact became apparent. 

 For example, a nurse from one of the state dispensaries, in her visiting 

 work, came across a certain farmhouse where five people were accus- 

 tomed to sleep in one not very large bedroom, which had only one 



1 Adapted from Overcrowding and Defective Housing in the Rural Districts, 

 PP- 3S-92- (Published by John Wiley & Sons.) 



