438 



Women in Eural Life. 



[Aug., 



to make certain articles for home use and for sale to a small 

 extent, and in doing so are at once adding a great and growing 

 interest to village life and learning the elements of co-opera- 

 tion. The " Members' Stall " which is a feature of many a 

 Women's Institute Meeting has often a tiny turnover reckoned 

 in money, but the stimulus that it gives to craftsmanship and 

 to interest in learning new methods reacts on the whole village. 

 In certain market towns village women have now their ow^n 

 market stall, to which they bring such odds and ends of 

 produce as they may have each week. It would not be enough 

 to supply a shop. It is uncertain in amount and irregular in 

 character. One such stall, however, had a turnover of £800 

 last year. Not only does this give the women an interest 

 in production, on however small a scale, but it teaches them 

 to co-operate in buying seed or chicken food or what not, and 

 in marketing. It also leads women and men to a greatly 

 increased interest in county council lectures on food production 

 and preservation. 



Country life is far from dull in itself; it becomes dull when 

 it is allowed to become lonely and monotonous. The Post- 

 master-General spoke a short time ago of his dream of having 

 the telephone in every village. At the moment opinion might 

 differ as to the added gaiety and content likely to result from 

 the installation of a telephone in every home, but the principle 

 is sound. ]\Tany facilities for social and educational life, many 

 appliances for lessening labour, which we consider essentially 

 urban, are to be found in the far more scattered and remote 

 villages of Canada and the United States. V/hen English 

 country-women really face the problem, not how to endure but 

 how to enjoy country life, a larger number of agricultural diffi- 

 culties will be diminished, if not removed, than farmers possibly 

 realise, for in the long run the women have considerable control 

 over the situation in their power to make home life comfortable 

 or uncomfortable, and in their influence on husband and 

 children. In many districts before the War, w'ork on the 

 land, the true aristocrat of industry, had fallen into disrepute. 

 It was considered a rise in the social scale to wear the black 

 coat and pasty face of a sedentary worker, and agriculture was 

 in danger of becoming like one of those stately old homes 

 which the tide of fashion has left slowly decaying in what is 

 now a back street. The War has done much to bring back a> 

 more sane and healthy point of view, but it depends largely 

 on country-women if that standpoint is to be maintained. 



