■Uhe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
WOMAN AND HOME j 
That is a good suggestion by Mr. 
Chichester on page 1440. The_ farmer 
turns retail butcher. AVhy not. if by so 
doing he can .supply beef to his custo¬ 
mers and at the same time obtain a 
larger share of the consumer’s dollar? 
Compared with what customers must pay 
for beef in our town, the prices (pioted 
on i)age 1440 are very attractive. Yet 
when a farmer can sell at these figures 
and have the hide in addition he is ahead 
of the man who sells to the cattle i)e(ldler. 
Many of us have got to come to just such 
lines of busines.s. It is our way out of 
the wilderness. If we cannot sell the 
fresh meat at retail we can put it into 
cans and sell or eat it later in the year. 
In one of your recent editions yoii or 
one of your correspondents stated a cer¬ 
tain woman had been appointed mail- 
carrier, which was the first known. We 
have a lady mail-carrier here. She has 
delivered mail ever since we moved here, 
three years, and had been at it for I 
cannot' tell how long. Furthermore, .she 
has bad roads in Winter and Spring, and 
goes her route when the other carriers 
fail to even make a start. J. K, 
Fulton. >). Y. 
We are glad to record this fact. 
Women are working into all sorts of 
occupations. In the city we find them 
in dozens of ditl'erent jobs which, before 
tlu' war, were cou.sidered men’s business 
exclusively. Not only thi.s, but the public 
has come to regard this labor condition 
ns permanent. At first it seemed reason¬ 
able that at the end of the war the 
women would pass out of these jobs^ to 
give juace for returning soldiers. Now 
it seems more likely that the women Avill 
remain, as in some respects they are 
more sati.sfactory workers than men. 
Sure it is that in the readjustment which 
is co-ming women are to take a much 
larger part in the nation’s labor than 
ever before. 
«;■ 
The other day a farmerette offered an 
advertisement for a job on a farm—the 
same as a hired man would^ hav«^ d(Uie. 
This is our first experience in this line, 
but there seems no good reason why a 
woman who understands farm work 
should not apply for a job. The farmer¬ 
ette ought to be of some u.se in the hou.se 
as well as outdoors, but we understand 
that in making contracts these women 
liave it clearly understood as to ho\v much 
housework they are to do. The farmer¬ 
ettes which we have seen seemed quite 
capable of stating their rights and hold¬ 
ing them. ^ 
The war has developed a new way of 
comparing women with men. “Nutrition¬ 
ally speaking.” what per cent of a man 
is a woman? That '■ in attempting to 
figure out the auiou: t ■ food needed by 
Ji city or a nation, wluu: irt of a man 
i.s a woman? A scientiiit ...mmission in 
Europe settled this by deciding that a 
man re(iuires .‘1.000 calories per day^in 
ids food, while a woman needs 2,500 
calories. That makes a woman 82 i)er 
cent of a man “nutritionally.” Woman 
has been f;poken of as man’s “better 
half.” ]\Ian certainly costs more to feed, 
but in actual benefit to society these 
“nutrition ])roportions” ought to be re¬ 
vised. 
The Department of .\griculture relates 
this story of a Wyoming girl; 
“At one of the Wyoming boy.s’ and 
gilds’ club conferences Indd recently in 
Star Valley was a leader of one of the 
local cann'ing clubs, who had ridden 
horseback ir» miles to a neighbor’.s. left 
her animal to rest, borrowed another 
horse, and continued to the conference, 
many miles farther, arriving at Star 
Valley at fi.l.j in the morning. Abmit 
iive o’clock in the afternoon thif;_ girl 
started on her return, exchanged animals 
at the neighbor’s house, went on to_ her 
liome. did the regular chores of the night, 
and reported on the happenings at the 
conference to the other members of her 
home. Traveling thus by relay, the girl 
attended all throe days of the confer¬ 
ence.” 
Who will say such a girl does not de¬ 
serve the ballot, or would not make good 
use of it? 
People come to u.s with all sorts of 
trouble, and our great regret is that we 
cannot always help them. ]Many of these 
troubles are of a personal nature, and 
they cannot be settled by any stranger. 
We give the best advice we can, and per¬ 
haps it is a relief and {•omfort for the 
troubled ones to feel that they are free 
to speak of it. For sometimes a man or 
woman may carry such a rrouble through 
life like a heavy burden—not feeling free 
to go to anyone in their limited ac<iuaint- 
ance and talk freely about it. We have 
had .several cases where it was evident 
that the misunderstanding aro.se from a 
hiilure of tlie parties to sit down and talk 
it out honestly and fairly. This is often 
true of financial difficulties between man 
and wife. There comet? a coolness be- 
twemi them, and each broods over the 
situation and imagines all sorts of evil 
things. Sometimes one or the other of 
these partners will come to us for advice. 
It i.s a great pleasure for us to learn that 
after a frank and sincere talk the trouble 
was removed and the idd life resumed. 
The Creed of Arrowhead Farm 
This farm is located in Flster Co., N. 
Y.. and it has adopted the following farm 
creed, which is printed on the back of 
Arrowhead Farm stationery. The part¬ 
ners are Millard II. Davis, Marian 
Davis and Millard Davis, wdiose names 
appear on the .stationery. This idea of a 
farm creed is good. Can you improve on 
tlie following? 
“Arrowhead Farm is situated in the 
beautiful and fruitful valley of the Rond- 
out. There i,s no finer place to live and 
move and have one’s being on this planet. 
The farm consists of 200 acres, divided 
approximately into 300 acri'S tillable, 50 
in fine \Yoods and 50 in pasture. 
“We believe that farming is one of the 
best occupations on earth. We believe 
that farming as now carried on in the 
Eastern States calls for more work and 
less financial returns than any other labor 
of head and hand a man may engage him¬ 
self iu. To remedy thus we believe in 
combination and co-operation of all farm¬ 
ers. We believe the present system of 
distribution of farm produce works more 
for the benefit of the middleman entirely 
and to the injury of both the producer 
and the consumer. 
“We are therefore endeavoring, first, 
to give the best we have of thought and 
action to make this farm yield a comfor¬ 
table living, to make it a thing good to 
look at, a delight to the eye and to the 
heart, and then to make it yield of its 
abundance to others to make them happy. 
And, next, we wish to join with all other 
farmers in working co-ojieratively togeth¬ 
er to make farming everywhere yield a 
comfortable return for a reasonable 
amount of work, and to get our surplus 
produce into the hands of the consumer at 
rea.sonable profit but will mit out the mid¬ 
dleman entirely and compel him to give 
himself to manual toil for a living, and 
will at the same time make the consumer 
rise up and call the farmer ble.ssed. 
1431 
“We believe in farming and in its jios- 
sibilities for health and happiness. 
“And to this effort we dedicate our¬ 
selves and our good farm.” 
tf 
There are a great many Finns in thi.s 
section, an intelligent, well-educated p, n- 
ple who are buying the cheap, neglected 
farms, and, better yet, are paying for 
them. Many of them belong to the Farm 
Bureau and take a more active intc're.st 
in farming than most of the Americans. 
^V^lile but few can read English, yearly 
all have children who can, and if once 
interi'sted in The It. N.-Y. it would be 
to your mutual advantage. I have put 
down but few of their names, as I have 
no idea how to spell them. l. ii. G. 
Vermont. 
The .average man is wise when he gives 
up trying to .spell or jironounce .some of 
these foreign names. They will all he 
Americanized in time, and the children 
who study in our juiblic schools will form 
tlie connecting link or corner of civiliza¬ 
tion. There are many ca.ses where 'I’he 
R. N.-Y. is read by the young people and 
by them translated to parents or older 
folks. In this way the message is car¬ 
ried on. The children grow up into bet¬ 
ter citizens by reason of the thought re¬ 
quired in making the me.ssage clear, while 
the older peoiile get something of the 
spirit of youth along with the message. 
* 
I have just bi'cn reading the “reasons 
why” yon can scud out such a good paper 
so ch('a|)ly iu thesi' day.s of high cost of 
mat(M-ial and labor. When Mr. Hoover, 
or any other man, talks about <Iairy farm- 
('rs being profiteers, he can’t know what 
h(' is talking about. MR.S. G. C. W. 
'Saratoga Co., N. Y. 
He does not. Probably Mr. Hoover 
obtains his Information from people who 
are more or less prejudii-ed against farm¬ 
ers. .\ man with as many things to con¬ 
sider as must confront tin* Food Admin¬ 
istrator cannot possibly .study them all 
per.soually. He must di'peud on reports 
from others, and many of these reports 
come from people who are not fair to the 
farmers. One of the truest criticisms of 
the present Food Administration is that 
practical farming has had the poore.st rep¬ 
resentation of any of the industries in 
any way re.s{)onsible for food production. 
>;! 
I should like you to know what a real 
comfort The R. N.-Y. is to me, a city 
woman who has thi.s big place to care for. 
I fly to my books when I need to know 
anything connected with farm matters. 
You have always been very kind and 
prompt in answering my iiuestions. 
.MRS. M. S. C. 
This woman was left in charge of a 
great orchard and farm proposition, and 
lias handled it well. We have hnndreds 
of women on our list who are struggling 
with the problem of beveloping or main¬ 
taining a farm. We do our best to help 
them, and it is a pleasure to feel that 
tlu'y are entirely free to come for help at 
any time. These ipie.stions run all the 
way from caring for a canary bird to 
marketing 5,()()() barrels of app' .s. 
x> 
This week there is a demand for a 
small device for twisting a spinning yarn. 
There is also a statement about a small 
grain grinder with small electric motor. 
‘riuMi comes our friend on page 1440, who 
sells meat by a map, with the cari'iiss 
figured to show the various cuts. All 
this indicates a return to some of the old 
time economie.s of manufacturing and 
selling. W(‘ believe this development will 
continue as a protest against (he extor¬ 
tion which middhuuen and manufacturers 
have bei'ii practicing. It will not be the 
old methods of our grandfathers, but 
these methods brought up-to-date with 
the developments of inventive skill ap- 
l)lied to them. We believe that a cer¬ 
tain definite part of manufacturing, 
grinding and preparation of food will 
come back to the farm—where it be¬ 
longs. 
Will some of our rural housekeepers 
tell us what they think about rural 
school lunchew? The theory or plan looks 
well. The district school is fitted with 
a kitchen cabinet and cooking stove and 
the girls cook and serve a hot lunch dur¬ 
ing the noon hour—all the pupils <-on- 
tributing. The teacher presides and keeps 
an eye on the proceedings. As you think 
of it thi.s plan gives the pupils warm food 
and a balanced ration, gives the girls ex¬ 
perience in cooking and serving a meal, 
and gives the entire school the civilizing 
influence of organized lunching. 'riiaf 
lookf? well, but is there another side? If 
then' i.s we want to look at it. Will 
some of the plain mothers and house- 
keeiiers tell us what they know about it? 
Vaccination Law in Pennsylvania 
Is it true that in the State of IVnnsyl- 
vania the law compels all .school children 
to he vaccinated? J. i’. n. 
Yes, the present law requires all jier- 
sons iu charge of schools to refuse admis¬ 
sion to any child except upon a jiliys- 
ician’s certificate that such child has been 
vaci-inated or has previously had small¬ 
pox. Failure to comply with this law 
rendeiK the responsible party liable to a 
fine of from .$5 to ,$100. This law is 
binding upon every public, private and 
parochial school in the State. It has 
been upheld by the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania. 
A Practical Lesson in Home Domestic Ht icnce 
A Err// fserioiis (■use for the Red Cross 
