Vol. LXVII. No. 3036. 
NEW YORK, APRIL 4, 1908. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR 
THE FARM AND THE SPINSTERS. 
How Two Women Worked Into Success. 
When Grandpa died and left his little 20-acre farm 
to Persis and me, everybody said: “Of course the 
girls will sell or rent it; they’ll never try to run a 
farm!” However, we “girls” (Sister Persis, aged 32, 
and myself, eight years older,) decided with our usual 
perversity that we would keep the place for a present 
home and a future retreat when we had reached an 
age that entitled us to an honorable discharge from 
the ranks of working women. Persis is a sten¬ 
ographer with short business hours in a large city, 
easily reached from the farm daily by trolley, while 
I am a teacher in another city, too far distant for 
daily trips, but easily accessible for week-end visits. 
Both of us were born and brought up on a farm by 
sensible parents who believed that farmers’ daughters 
should know something about agriculture and house¬ 
work, with a good “book education” thrown in. We 
can knit, sew and mend, bake good bread and make 
good butter and keep house to suit the most fas¬ 
tidious taste. We can also milk a cow—to the cow’s 
taste—harness and drive a horse, ride the hay-rake 
and tedder and do all sorts of farming “stunts,”— 
while Persis is “way up” on chicken raising and can 
make the most obstinate hen lay, in spite of herself. 
Modesty forbids mention of our personal charms and 
accomplishments, but they are many! I had been 
rather out of touch with country life for several years, 
except for Summers spent on the old place, but Persis 
OUR FRIEND THE COW. Fig. 129. 
had made her home with Grandpa for many years, and 
knew the farm thoroughly. 
For two years Grandpa had been unable to do much 
work, and a kindly neighbor with an eye to the main 
chance had been carrying on the farm “on shares”— 
as nearly as we could discover, Grandpa’s share was 
paying bills. Our first step was to suggest to this 
neighbor that this mode of transacting business didn’t 
suit us and that we proposed to “call it off.” He 
looked very much surprised and hurt—said he was 
willing to go on as before, and that he would be very 
sorry to see the place run down, implying in a kindly 
pitying tone that it would surely go to the bow-wows 
if we tried to manage it. We thanked him for his 
kindly interest, but remained firm in our decision, and 
finally saw him drive away his cows and leave us 
monarchs of all we surveyed. As we wished to have 
some idea of past expenses to guide us in our future 
plans we looked over the expense accounts of the pre¬ 
ceding two years. There were accounts—beautiful 
ones, set down in due form in very bl&ck ink on big 
sheets of foolscap, said to be exact copies from the 
expense book of aforesaid kind neighbor. According 
to the agreement, one-half the grain bill was to be 
paid by Grandpa and one-half by his benefactor. As 
I have rather “a head for figgers” I undertook to 
work out the problem—“Given 10 cows, to which are 
fed in one month’s time 298 bushels of various grains, 
how much does each cow receive per day?” Now I 
am not a tenderfoot, and I know that no sane cow 
could eat a bushel of grain a day regularly and live 
to tell the tale, but that was the average according to 
the half-and-half” bills. Besides, an honest young 
fellow who used to be about the barn a good deal, 
had privately informed us that he thought the cattle 
were given too much grain, for some were getting 16 
quarts (including four of gluten) a day, and that was 
enough to spoil any cow. We concluded we could 
keep cows cheaper than that. 
The barn was almost empty of hay in February, 
which had never happened in Grandpa’s day; the pota¬ 
toes and apples had mysteriously “gone short,” and 
THE HEN WOMAN. Fig. 130. 
the whole place was pretty well skinned. On examin¬ 
ing the milk record we found an average of 40 quarts 
a day for the 10’ cows. Just how many of the man’s 
own five were dry we couldn’t tell, but of the five re¬ 
maining, one was entirely dry, one very nearly so, 
one was giving eight quarts a day, another six, and 
the last, a wall-eyed, ridge-backed, long-legged scrub, 
was giving four quarts only, although recently fresh— 
hardly satisfactory for progressive farmers. How 
we disposed of this lot and obtained our present pay¬ 
ing herd would form a chapter in itself, but I must 
say that a man who wouldn’t steal an umbrella, or 
cheat in a horse trade even will blandly perjure him¬ 
self in a cow trade and pat himself on the back for it, 
especially if he trades with a woman. Never mind— 
we’ve cut our eye-teeth now! 
As Summer came on we found that the pasture had 
been so exhausted that nearly full Winter rations had 
to be given in the barn, although we had a moderate 
supply of corn fodder to feed for a time. Whether 
THE WOMAN FARMER AFIELD. Fig. 131. 
the “sharer’s” cows had dyspepsia, or what made them 
so ravenous we never knew, but they had just about 
gnawed up the pasture grass by the roots, and made 
the field worth very little for the next Summer. No 
grass land had been plowed the previous year, the land 
had not been top-dressed, and the hay crop our first 
Summer was a distinct failure. The half-acre straw¬ 
berry patch had been allowed to go to waste, machin¬ 
ery had not been carefully looked after and was seri¬ 
ously injured by neglect. Most of the harness had 
b'een broken and tied together with rope, and the barn 
was in a state of confusion and filth that would be 
better left to the imagination. 
After four years of persistent struggling with every 
conceivable obstacle, from the Brown-tail moth to in¬ 
competent and intemperate, “hired hands,” we have 
now six cows averaging a value of $100 apiece, three 
two-year-old registered heifers, a purebred Ayrshire 
bull, one good horse, 200 hens and 300 chickens, while 
the farm is on a fair paying basis. 
Were this a nice, pretty little untrue story instead 
of plain unvarnished facts, our way would have been 
strewn with roses as we dashed boldly along the path 
to success, raising and selling fabulous crops, having 
hens that would lay two eggs a day apiece, and cows 
that filled three cans a day each, the year round, while 
everyone for miles around rushed to help us with 
kindly suggestions and substantial help. Candor com¬ 
pels the statement, however, that for the first two 
years the obstacles were enough to daunt the boldest 
hearts, while most of our farmer neighbors scoffed 
and sniffed at our attempts, and every man we hired 
did his best to frustrate every plan we made. We 
were modest, too, in our first steps, for we realized 
that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and that we had a 
ONE OF THE PARTNERS. Fig. 132. 
long, hard pull before us. We turned our attention 
first to the part of the barn where the cows were 
located; tore out part of the old, decayed, filthy plank¬ 
ing, and reconstructed the “tie-up” on more modern 
lines and with swing stanchions. Formerly the cows 
had been turned out into the barnyard in all weathers, 
to drink from a large tank supplied with spring water. 
This water we now had piped to the barn and carried 
to each stall, and in very cold weather a heating ap¬ 
paratus in the lower tank gave a moderate tempera¬ 
ture to the water. The cows are turned out to ex¬ 
ercise every pleasant day, but are not obliged to go 
out in all weathers to get water. We put up a “holder” 
for brick salt in each stall, and had the feed mangers 
cemented. The walls and overhead woodwork were 
cleaned and whitewashed, and several additional win¬ 
dows put in, so that now the sunlight fills the barn 
nearly all day. We sold the old cows and bought 
three good ones, one of them a registered heavy milk 
producer, and we also invested in a year-old pure¬ 
bred heifer. This stock cost a hundred dollars more 
than the old stock brought us, but it was well worth 
it. From this beginning we have our present small 
herd of six cows, three heifers and a bull, and we 
have sold two bull calves eligible for registration at a 
good price. These six cows now, October, 1907, give 
