THE UNITED FARM WOMEN 121 



meeting. The President and Secretary, with an 

 open copy of the constitution in hand, met them 

 at the door, and read them the section stating 

 that only those directly interested in agriculture 

 were eligible for membership in the U.F.O. 

 The suspicions, attendant on war, were then 

 rife, and the intruders returned to town spread- 

 ing the information that the farmers were hold- 

 ing meetings behind closed doors and were 

 guilty of seditious utterances. 



Realizing that the best headway could be 

 made only by securing the enthusiastic co-opera- 

 tion of the men, the women laid careful plans for 

 storming the U.F.O. annual convention. Pre- 

 liminary to appearing in session with the men, 

 they held a session of their own in a room loaned 

 by the University of Toronto. At this, their 

 first general meeting, there were thirty women 

 present, but only sixteen came as accredited 

 delegates, while only three U.F.W.O. clubs had 

 yet been formed in affiliation with Head Office. 

 Several helpful papers were contributed pro- 

 voking earnest discussion, and as a result the 

 U.F.W.O., after adopting the men's platform in 

 full, decided upon drafting a supplementary 

 platform of their own, the main tenets of which 

 should be noted as follows: 



1. Improvement of rural homes and 

 schools. 



