70 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



half, and this is the usual labor of the clay in plowing. Last Saturday I 

 saw two of the young girls, one aged IT, the other 15, sowing wheat broad- 

 cast, and their sowing was done as well as any one would do it. I saw 

 another, aged 13, dragging, and another, aged 19, rolling, and another piling 

 and burning brush with her father. These daughters have each the care 

 of their own teams. One of the daughters, who is IT, is detailed to do the 

 housework this season. She is good at plowing, sowing, dragging and 

 rolling as any of them. The housework is considered by them the hardest 

 and most difficult to perform. They all prefer the out-door farm work. 



" During the two years they have been on this farm they have labored 

 mainly to get the land in a state to raise good crops. They have suc- 

 ceeded. The}^ have spent $1,400 the past year in draining. This work 

 has been done by men. During the two years over fifty acres have been 

 cleared of bushes, stumps and roots, and this has been done mainly by the 

 mother and daughters. 



" Mrs. Roberts and her daughters, as I have stated above, have put in 

 thirty acres of flax. They reasonably expect a ton and a half per acre. 

 There is an establishment in Lockport, ten miles from their farm by rail- 

 road, to convert flax into cotton. The company offer them $8 per ton in 

 advance for all the flax they can raise, and they are offered $1 per bushel 

 for the seed. If the company in Lockport succeed in their efforts to cotton- 

 ize flax, as it is confidently believed they will, untold quantities of flax will 

 be produced in this region. It is a pretty sure crop, seldom failing, as 

 does wheat." 



Mr. Carpenter. — The effort of Mrs. Roberts and her family was very 

 meritorious, although he thought that in this enlightened age it was not 

 the place for women to do this kind of work. He understood, however, 

 that a woman in his neighborhood had taken a farm of seventy acres, which 

 had been so run down that the former occupant could not make a living upon 

 it. Her intention is to educate young girls to the labor and duties of farm- 

 ers' wives, and to raise small fruits for market. 



Prof Renwick. — I am old enough to remember when it was common in 

 this part of the country for women to work out a portion of the time, and 

 their general health was much better than it is now. In Europe, where 

 women work out very commonly, they are robust and healthier than Ameri- 

 can women in the same ranks of life. Some women think it is a degrada- 

 tion to do any out-door work, even so much as to trim a rose bush. I 

 noticed, on a visit to a great dairy region in Herkimer county, N. Y., that 

 nearly all the labor of the dairy was done by Irish hired men. In Cheshire, 

 England, I never saw a man do anything of the sort. I do not understand 

 what has produced the existing notion among American women that out- 

 door labor is not as respectable as any employment in-doors. I am sure it 

 is equally honorable and far healthier. 



Mr. Robinson. — With me there is no q^uestion whether it is not more 

 respectable for the daughters of Mrs. Roberts to go into the field and 

 labor than it would be to idly spend their time in the house, living upon 

 the toil of their parents. 



Prof. Nash. — It is not uncommon in England and Scotland for women to 

 take charge of a farm and conduct it successfully. In England, women 



