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Women in Rural Life. 



[Aug., 



WOMEN IN RURAL LIFE. 



Grace E. Hadow. 



Among the many unexpected results of the War has been a 

 dawning realisation of the part which must be played by 

 women in rural life if our country-side is not to become 

 depopulated. The Land Army did splendid service in helping 

 to keep farms cultivated when otherwise they must have 

 lapsed. Women ploughed, thatched, drove horses and tractors, 

 and, as women have always done, weeded and hoed. 

 Undoubtedly the result was to make many women realise 

 ways in which they may become agricultural workers in peace 

 as well as in war; to stimulate their desire for an open-air life; 

 and to give farmers confidence in women, especially for dairy 

 work and market gardening. A certain number of women 

 have taken, and will continue to take up these occupations as 

 a direct consequence of the call to service on the land. 



The influence of the Land Army, however, was far wider, 

 and in a sense far more important than this. It taught country 

 women of all classes to take an intelligent interest not only 

 in agriculture and horticulture, poultry keeping and pig keeping, 

 but in rural life generally. The extraordinary growth of the 

 Women's Institute movement is perhaps the most conspicuous 

 and striking evidence of the new life stirring in the country- 

 side, but it is only an evidence of something still more wide 

 spread. During the War educated women lived in cottage homes 

 and worked side by side with agricaltural labourers. Town 

 dwellers came from crowded alleys to make hay and stook 

 wheat; country girls who had never left home before, went 

 away to work in huge munition factories. In rhe great 

 kaleidoscope of war we were shaken together — we are still 

 being shaken — and in forming new patterns we gained new 

 adaptability. 



Two forces in this freshly-shaping world are at present in 

 danger of pulling opposite ways. The improved statas of the 

 woman labourer, the intelligent interest which has been 

 developed in food production and in house-craft, pull one way; 

 the increased consciousness of the dullness of country life 

 pulls the other. No sane being wants to see all farms 

 " womaned " instead of " manned," or even the majority of 

 country-women become agricultural labourers. Quit'^ aT)art 

 from their actual work in dairy or poultry-yard or garden, 



