1914. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
489 
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The successful demonstration of a co¬ 
operative laundry at Chatfield, Minne¬ 
sota, during the past year has arrested 
thought concerning the greatest remain¬ 
ing stronghold of household efficiency and 
waste. Such a stronghold is the weekly 
wash. Home improvements have dis¬ 
pensed with some burdensome tasks, and 
relegated others to the barn or factory, 
but washing and ironing still resist at¬ 
tack. Machines have alleviated but not 
wholly relieved the situation. For the 
most part the steam, the slop, the heavy 
tubs or machines, the exposure at the 
line—in short, Blue Monday and most 
of its accompaniments, remain. 
The story of the Chatfield laundry 
should be familiar to every woman head 
of a household. It is simply home econ¬ 
omics applied on a neighborhood scale. 
Acquaintance with the principles upon 
which it is founded and operated tends 
to pave the way for a similar laundry 
iix every community. In some cases it 
will be slower to come than in others, 
because we are not all yet prepared to 
• work together. Ah, and there’s the rub! 
The Minnesota laundry grew vei - y nat¬ 
urally and logically out of a cooperative 
creamery which was started and has been 
run upon true cooperative principles. 
These principles in brief are: 1. Votes 
based on men or patronage., not on capital 
stock; 2. Only reasonable interest paid 
on capital stock ; 3. Net earnings divided 
on a pati'onage basis. 
When these crystal principles are once 
understood by our women, the idea of 
really working together will have gained 
a tremendous leverage. The creamery at 
Chatfield opened in 1S89, and has oper¬ 
ated under these provisions. About seven 
years ago the man who was then butter 
maker rigged up an old churn with belt¬ 
ing and shafting so that it could be run 
as a washing machine in the engine room. 
This suggested the economy of using the 
power plant for other purposes than that 
alone of butter making. There were the 
engine, water supply, sewer system and 
facilities for heating water—all installed 
but used only during afternoons. The 
practicability of the idea appealed to the 
management, but extensive repairs had 
just been made, and the matter halted 
until a year ago last Summer. The an¬ 
nual dividends, however, were voted to 
remain in the treasury and, in 1912, these 
amounted to $2,000. At this time the 
question of the feasibility of a cooper¬ 
ative laundry was brought up in the lo¬ 
cal farmers’ club. In the popular dis¬ 
cussion which ensued, the project gained 
headway, and a little later, at a Summer 
picnic, was put to popular vote. No one 
was debarred from this vote by reason of 
sex, and the result was overwhelmingly 
in favor of a laundry. Canvass for mem¬ 
bers of the proposed new association was 
made among both farm and townspeople. 
Shares sold for $5, and stockholders in¬ 
vested from one to five shares each. It 
must be remembered that each stockhold¬ 
er has but one vote, not matter how many 
shares he owns, making it an entirely 
democratic organization. There are now 
224 shareholders, and every care has been 
taken to perfect the simplest organization 
consistent with highest efficiency. The 
officers of the creamery are also officers 
of the laundry association, but the busi¬ 
ness of each is kept entirely separate 
from that of the other. Thoroughly up 
to date and well protected laundry ma¬ 
chinery, with capacity of $400 worth of 
work weekly, was installed in an unpre¬ 
tentious, sanitary and convenient addi¬ 
tion to the creamery building. A compe¬ 
tent manager is employed at a salary 
equal to that of a first-class butter maker, 
with an assistant at 20 cents per hour 
and five helpers at 15 cents per hour. 
Most of the washings come in on the 
cream wagons, but those from town are 
collected at an additional expense of 
about 10 per cent. The charges are five 
cents per pound for family washings, 
and this includes the ironing of all the 
fiat work, underwear and hosiery. All 
A Co-operative Farm Laundry 
Which Minnesota Women Enjoy 
By Miss Jennie Buell, Lecturer Michigan State Grange 
other work, which cannot be ironed in 
the mangle, is starched, dried, folded and 
sent home in this shape unless ordered 
ironed by hand, in which latter case it is 
charged for at actual cost. About half 
the patrons order their clothes ironed. 
The first year’s annual report showed 
that the laundry had done over 5,000 
family washings at an average of 95 
cents each. 
The above is the business side of the 
story. The real success or failure of the 
laundry lies in the answer to the ques¬ 
tion, “What do the women think of it?” 
spent on labor that no person ever did for 
what pleasure they got out of it.” 
No help for the farm home can be too 
widely heralded until every woman in 
the land is relieved of unnecessary man¬ 
ual work, and is at liberty to devote more 
time to her family in other ways. 
Keeping Children on the Farm. 
[The following paper was i*ead by Mr. 
G. L. Ball at his local Grange in Cattar¬ 
augus Co., N. Y. A good share of the 
discussion of this topic is conducted by 
people who never had a farm and never 
CO-OPERATIVE LAUNDRY AT CHATFIELD, MINN 
If anyone really cares to know, she 
should send for the Minnesota Farmers’ 
Institute Annual for 1913, which is a co- 
opei-ation number, and read therein per¬ 
sonal testimonials from 25 women who 
patronize this laundry. Address Super¬ 
intendent A. D. Wilson, University Farm, 
St. Paul, Minn., with 11 cents for post¬ 
age. In this report of the laundry ap¬ 
pear such expressions regarding it as 
these made by the women themselves: 
“The work is excellent, much better than 
could be done at home”; “Find the fine 
articles as nice as the plain”; “Find 
plenty of things to do about the house 
raised any children. Here we have the 
real thing by a farmer.] 
Our worthy lecturer has set me a hard 
task, to wit, to write about how to keep 
the boys on the farm. Hard, because I 
am not enthusiastic about it, and don’t 
believe it is the thing to do in the sense 
that it is usually urged by writers on 
agricultural subjects. 
First, the phrase, “Keep them on the 
farm,” means a sort of restraint, or at 
least an urging to remain whether they 
like it or not. I do not agree with that 
idea at all, but would leave it to each 
individual to choose for himself. At the 
INTERIOT 
VIEW OF LAUNDRY 
to more than make up the cost”; “Best 
‘lift’ I have received, and comes quite 
near to solving the hired help problem 
on the farm”; “Besides doing away with 
two days hard work each week, the wash¬ 
ing and ironing are done better and 
cheaper than they could be done at 
home”; “I always know the clothes are 
sterilized when coming from the laun¬ 
dry”; “My husband says he will add an¬ 
other cow to the herd and that will pay 
the extra expense of the laundry by way 
of the cooperative creamery”; “No one 
could believe it without seeing it”; “I 
could go on for pages telling the joys got¬ 
ten out of the time which used to be 
risk of being thought egotistical I will 
give a little of my own personal exper¬ 
ience in agriculture. I began to be in¬ 
terested when quite young. As near as 
I can figure out, I was about three years 
old when the soil first began to tempt 
me to dig. My mother had a small pan¬ 
cake turner that seemed to me to be an 
ideal spade, and I was wont to borrow 
it for the purpose of digging in the 
garden. After digging a short time, 
I was quite apt to stop suddenly and 
go into the house saying I did not want 
to dig any more. Mother would say, 
“Why not? Did you see an angleworm?” 
I never acknowledged that to be the rea¬ 
son but would only say, “I do not want 
to dig any more,” but the worm was the 
reason just the same. In other words I 
had run across what, to me, was dis¬ 
agreeable and consequently was ready to 
quit. Now I reason that is what hap¬ 
pens to a great many of the farmer boys. 
They come to things that are disagree¬ 
able, and do not want to dig any more, 
even though they have an ideal spade and 
the most tempting dirt. If they have the 
real farmer spirit they will soon get over 
that and return with renewed courage 
to their digging, and worms will be to 
them as they were later on to me, fish 
bait. It matters but little what is to 
be done if it is done with an end to be 
gained, aixd with a hearty good will it 
is a pleasure and not a task. 
Boys as well as the rest of huamnity 
are much influenced by what is going on 
around them, and by the point of view 
of their associates and friends, and you 
people who think the boys should be 
kept fm the farm should be always alive 
to the fact that what you do and what 
your neighbors do is what your boys and 
other people’s boys will judge by as to 
the desirability of being on the farm. 
Let us look at the subject from the view¬ 
point of the boy himself, as near as we 
can; or as we might if we were boys 
again. 
The constitution of the United States 
guarantees to all citizens the right to 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
When the boy sees the business man of 
the city or town riding in an auto and 
going on pleasure or business trips by 
fail, and having the chance of the thea¬ 
tre, lectures, etc., he is apt to think the 
city is just the place for him to begin 
the pursuit, not knowing, or rather not 
stopping to think, of the vast majority 
of city people who do not have the op¬ 
portunities which seem to him to be a 
part of city life. 
Another phase of the subject is best 
illustrated by a glance at our own neigh¬ 
borhood. Take 10 farms along our north 
road. TV hat do we see? Why, simply 
this: that judging by what our farmers 
do, the proper thing is to work the farm 
with the sole object in view of being able 
to leave it and live in town as soon as 
possible. I will give a list of 10 farms: 
First, a farm rented and owner living 
in town; second, farm wox-ked and lived 
on by owners; third, farm rented and 
owner moved to town ; fourth, farm rent¬ 
ed and owner living in town; fifth, rent¬ 
ed and owner living in town; sixth, 
farm rented, owner living in town; sev¬ 
enth, farm rented and owner living in 
town; eighth, farm rented, owner living 
on the place; ninth, farm worked and 
lived on by owner; tenth, worked and 
lived on by owner. To recapitulate, six 
out of 10 of the owners of the best farms 
in this part of the county "gone to town.” 
What other conclusion can a boy dx*aw 
than that it is just about the best thing 
ever to go to town and kick your heels 
against a dry goods box? 
Why not live on a farm as if you 
really liked it? Why not treat the farm 
as if it were the best place on earth for 
a home, and the freest and finest place 
for the development of a real live human 
being that has ever been found? 
Why not enjoy the earth and the full¬ 
ness thereof, forgetting the angleworms, 
and bless your lucky stars that you are 
not obliged to work in a stuffy office, or 
toil as a part of a machine in some 
health-destroying factory? Ten to one 
if you do so live, your boy or your neigh¬ 
bor’s boy who comes in contact with you 
will not need to be kept on the farm, 
but will stay there for the same reason 
that you do. 
R. N.-Y.—We think Mi*. Ball gets 
right down to the vital point in this pa¬ 
per. In every large family there are both 
boys and girls who are not naturally 
fitted for farming. They ought to find 
some other job, but always remember the 
farm as their home. Most boys leave the 
farm because father’s dollar and mother’s 
ambition go first. They follow. 
