SOME PROBLEMS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOR 855 



half of the total work done on the farm has been done by the women 

 of the house, besides doing all their cooking and mending and raising 

 their families. 



Kentucky. The woman does 50 per cent of all the work on the 

 farm except at the plow, such as clearing up the land, hoeing the corn, 

 potatoes, cabbage, beans, etc.; the woman does the same as the man 

 hi gathering the corn, potatoes, etc. The woman does the work at 

 50 cents per day and will ask for the work, while the men hands can't 

 be employed on the farm for less than $i a day. 



Mississippi. To look at the careworn, tired faces and bent forms 

 of the "bride of a few years" in our hill sections, where servants are 

 scarce, we realize at once our personal and national neglect and are 

 astounded at the enormity of it. I wonder if the gentleman has ever 

 seen a woman plowing cotton with oxen, and what he would think if 

 he knew that this woman's husband was working at a sawmill several 

 miles away and it was her daily task to get up and cook his breakfast 

 so he can be at work at six o'clock. And yet this is a common sight 

 in the rural districts. The women living on farms, in addition to 

 bearing and caring for their children and doing their own housework, 

 work in the fields during the months of May, June, and July, which 

 is the hoeing season, and in September, October, November, and 

 December, which is the cotton picking season. 



Oklahoma. Our young girls' and women's health is ruined from 

 dragging big heavy sacks of cotton up and down the cotton rows. 

 A farmer's wife toils like a slave from before dawn until far into the 

 night, trying to do her housework and be a field hand too. 



Texas. The routine of the southern farm woman is about as 

 follows: At this time of the year she is up at 5 o'clock preparing 

 the breakfast, after building her own fire; milks the cows, cares 

 for the milk churns the cream by hand; puts the house in order, 

 gets the dinner, eats with the family at noon; leaves the house in 

 disorder, goes to the cotton field and picks cotton all the afternoon, 

 often dragging a weight of 60 pounds along the ground. At about 

 sundown she goes to the farmhouse, puts the house in order, washes 

 the dishes left over from the noon meal, prepares the supper most 

 of the time too tired to eat; gets the children to bed, and falls asleep 

 herself and so it goes on from day to day. Somehow she finds time 

 to do the washing and ironing, mending, knitting, and darning between 

 times. During the child-bearing period, there is generally a further 

 drain on her strength. The result is she is weak and frail as a rule. 



