Vol. LXVIII, No. 3093. 
NEW YORK, MAY 8, 1909. 
WEEKLY. $1.00 PER YEAR. 
A WOMAN’S FARM. 
The Connecticut Summer Boarder Crop. 
I have lawns, 1 have bowers, 
I have fruit, I have flowers; 
The lark is my morning alarmer; 
So, my jolly hoys, now, 
Here’s Godspeed to the plow. 
Long life and good health to the farmer! 
—Old English Song. 
The poet advises that the “jolly boys” do the plow¬ 
ing, but says nothing about the sex of the farmer. 
Nowadays, even if the women cannot get votes as 
fast as some of them would like, they get a chance 
school successfully for the three years since leaving 
the normal school. I felt the stirring of the farmer 
in me, and so gladly left the kindergarten for the 
vegetable garden. My father had run the farm to 
produce milk for a number of years and, assisted 
by his sister, had taken Summer boarders, having 
enlarged the original farmhouse to accommodate 
about 25 people. I had been at home very little for 
a number of years, so my knowledge of farming was 
mostly inherited or theory. At my taking the prop¬ 
erty the farm was in good condition and fairly well 
stocked. It was mortgaged for $5,500 at five per cent. 
I had a little ready money from my school salary 
change was a benefit to me, as on the old milk route, 
running as it did to a manufacturing town with an 
unstable population, there was always some loss from 
bad bills. 
My next move was to dispose of a large flock of 
hens and move the houses and yards. I may as well 
confess that I hate hens. I knew that I should 
never want to fuss with them myself, and thought 
that my men’s time could be employed to equal ad¬ 
vantage in taking care of something that would not 
crow mornings! One of the things done the first 
year was to build a 30-foot greenhouse. I justified 
this outlay by the vast improvement possible in my 
THE CONNECTICUT WOMAN FARMER AND HER HILL CULTIVATED STRAWBERRIES. Fig. 206. 
to try their hand at many trades and professions, 
and prove themselves workmen who need not to be 
ashamed. I have been “farming it” for eight years, 
and have not yet put myself in the poorhouse—the 
cheerful prediction of many friends. In the Spring 
of 1901 I took my inheritance, from my father, of a 
200-acre New England farm and decided, rather than 
to sell the homestead, that I would run it myself. 
1 his farm was' a part of the land taken up by 
my great-grandfather, John Payson, on the settle¬ 
ment of this part of the country by a company of 
men and women from Roxbury^ Mass., in 1708, and 
has been in the family ever since. I had been born 
and brought up here and, in spite of having taught 
to start on. I am nearly as much afraid of debt 
as Nell Beverly, and I was curious to see if I could 
make the farm support itself and me. Previous to 
my occupancy the milk had been peddled in a town 
four miles away, but the year I took the farm a 
boys’ boarding school was started in our own town, 
and I made a bid to supply it with milk and cream, 
and have held the contract ever since. The school 
has now grown to such size that I take all the milk 
from my neighbor, on the next farm, and sell it with 
mine, supplying, beside the school, about 20 families. 
The school is two miles from my farm and the milk 
is delivered twice a day all the school year and < at 
other times, to my customers, once a day. This 
vegetable garden through growing a good stock of 
early plants, and I have had no trouble in raising 
and selling, among my neighbors, enough vegetable 
and bedding plants to cover the cost of running the 
greenhouse. It is one of my great pleasures to have 
this place to work in all Winter, and I can always 
have a few flowers and blossoming plants for the 
house, or to give a friend. With the greenhouse and 
a few hotbed frames, I have lettuce nearly the whole 
year, and ripe tomatoes by April 1. The vegetable 
and small fruit garden I run for all there is in it 
—or for all that can be got out. In Fig. 206 you 
sec that the strawberry crop is inspected with care. 
I supply several Summer cottages with all sorts of 
