1062 Agriculture as an Occupation for Women. [Feb.. 



My advice to the girl who aspires to become a farmer is to 

 spend at least two years as a working pupil under a good farmer 

 or farmers. Experience on more than one farm is desirable, for 

 thereby she would be enabled to study a variety of farming 

 methods. She would then be in a position to get the very best 

 out of a College course, for which she should enter, working for 

 the National Diploma of Agriculture or for a degree in agricul- 

 tural science. The mistake of going direct to the College without 

 any practical experience is often made, the student not knowing" 

 which particular branch of the subject she wishes to give most 

 attention, and much valuable time is wasted in learning those 

 elementary details of practical work with which she should have 

 been already familiar. 



If we assume that our student left school at seventeen or 

 eighteen, the course of study suggested above will end when she 

 is about twenty-three years of age, and she w T ill be still too 

 young to undertake the responsibility of a farm. A wiser 

 course would be to obtain a post as forew T oman or assistant on a 

 farm, and so continue to lay up a store of experience that 

 will prove invaluable w 7 hen, as so frequently happens on a 

 farm, things occur which defy the rules of the text-books. 

 There is probably no occupation in the w r orld in which 

 experience is of such vital importance as in agriculture, and it 

 is to this lack of experience in our college-bred agriculturists 

 that the wdde-spread distrust of the farmer for the man or 

 woman with the Diploma or Degree is to be attributed. On 

 this point, it is necessary to be very clear and to remove any 

 suspicion that in this article it is intended to belittle the value 

 of a college training. I am convinced that a thorough know- 

 ledge of the theory and science of agriculture is of the highest 

 value to the farmer, but the college course should be preceded 

 by an equally thorough training in the practical details of the 

 work. Average farmers may not plough, milk, care for the 

 horses in the stable, and drive the tractor on the farm, but unless 

 they can do so, if necessary, and are capable of showing by prac- 

 tical demonstration how a job should be done or where a fault, 

 lies, they will be less well served than their neighbour, who. 

 though ignorant of science, knows exactly from experience the 

 details of farm work. 



A branch of agriculture in which a few women are already 

 employed, and which should offer a field for the energies of a 

 certain number in the future, is research work. For this, a 

 degree in agricultural science, and a special aptitude for the work; 



