The American Country Girl Part 20

It is to come about through the fulfilment of a plan which was the outgrowth of the Commission on Country Life, and which has been worked for by many students of rural conditions and lovers of the countryside.

The whole scheme sets before the Country Girl of to-day an open door and gives to her more hope of relief from the unfortunate results of the unscientific farming and unbalanced conditions in the country homes of the past than any other one thing that has been devised.

But what is this Open Door? To explain this, we must start in by a sort of detour, with the Boll Weevil. His Imperial Highness was a fiend incarnate; yet his coming was not all a misfortune. For to rid the land of this depredating buccaneer among the Southern domains, demonstration farms were established, and these led to a more adapted form of conveying help to the distressed and threatened farmers in the cotton belt by means of instruction carried to the individual farms themselves.

A wonderful degree of success attended this work, and the Western farmers, seeing this, called to the Government for aid of the same sort against their own special difficulties, an a.s.sistance which was generously given. Funds were distributed through the States by the Federal Government, and by means of demonstrations, the Government sought to give to all the States the benefits that had been proved so helpful in the South. Meanwhile the States themselves were carrying on many projects of their own for the advancement of the farming interests within their bounds. There was likelihood that there might be duplication of effort, that there might even be waste of means and of energies. To make sure, then, that this should not happen, the Government has now devised a new measure, a bill for the inauguration of Cooperative Agricultural Extension Work, known at present as the Smith-Lever Bill.

The pa.s.sing of this bill was an item of the 1914 national budget. Before the eventful thing happened many processions of women protesting their desire for more formal acknowledgment before the law and in the privileges of the vote had walked the length of Fifth Avenue, and in these processions many men of the highest stamp had taken their chivalrous place. By the time the bill was being framed the woman side of things for city and for country had begun to hold a far different position in the public mind than it did in the days of Th.o.r.eau or Horace Mann. It was not just as a slip of the tongue that the words "and home economics" were placed by the words "subjects relating to agriculture."

No: the concurrence of the phrases came about as a natural outcome of well-considered belief, as indeed a testimonial to the fact that in the mind of the framer of the bill the two matters were of equal importance and were to be logically united in the minds of the people. At any rate, the fact that the phrase "home economics" stands at the head of this bill represents an incalculable leap forward of public opinion in the direction of betterment for the home and all that it contains of influence on our well-being. Let it be deeply impressed, then, that the two words, "Agriculture" and "Home Economics" stand together at the head of a bill that is to provide for instruction on a vast scale for all the rural districts of this land.

In a letter to the author, the Honorable Asbury F. Lever, the framer of the Smith-Lever Bill in its present form, shows a full appreciation of the claim of the countryside to a fair share in this distribution. The letter by kind permission may be quoted here and is as follows:

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,

_House of Representatives, U. S._

WASHINGTON, D. C., August 20, 1914.

MRS. MARTHA FOOTE CROW, Tuckahoe, New York City.

_My dear Mrs. Crow:_

Responding to your letter, permit me to enclose you herewith a marked copy of my report which accompanied the bill from the Committee on Agriculture. I say unhesitatingly that the problem of the farm wife is one of the most vital of all of our rural problems and when this bill was drawn, I had in mind the use of a reasonable portion of the funds for the amelioration of her condition. I think the exact division of the funds should depend upon conditions in each individual State and may be increased or decreased as seems wise to those charged with the handling of the funds. I believe that the home economics feature of this bill is one of its most important features. In my own State one-fourth of the funds are to be used for the teaching of home economics by means of the itinerant teacher. This may be found to be insufficient and if it is the ratio can be changed. I would feel greatly disappointed if those who use these funds should in any manner get it into their minds that the home economics feature of the law is not regarded by the author as important. Trusting this will be of service to you,

Very truly, A. F. LEVER.

When Uncle Sam starts out on some great endeavor, he does so with a wide scope and plans on a magnificent scale. And wise he is, too. The universities, through their agricultural colleges, where, as Secretary of Agriculture Houston says, information has been "reservoiring" for the last half century, will be made the effective means for the distributing of the wealth of the scientific knowledge and research they have garnered.

Through men and women trained in these special schools where all details of farm business and home economics are now accessible to everybody, the demonstration of these forms of scientific knowledge will be carried out to the farms and to the homes on the farms directly. And Uncle Sam will pay for it. Ten thousand dollars is directly appropriated to each State annually, beginning in 1914. The next year after this another sum of approximately the same amount will come to each State according to the percentage of the rural population in that State, counting by the Census of 1910. In each year following, the same sum is added to that of the year before, until 1924 is reached, when the sum becomes a fixed annual appropriation of three million, paid according to the percentage of the rural population at the time. To show that the individual States appreciate all this, they must add to these appropriations in a certain ratio. Will any States fail to show their appreciation, and to meet the offer of the beneficent Uncle Sam? If they do, they will be standing in their own light in the most darkness-loving way.

Now this wonderful bill says distinctly nothing as to how the vast h.o.a.rd of money shall be divided between the two departments, "agriculture" and "home economics." Perhaps it may be half and half; then again perhaps it may be in a ratio of ninety-nine per cent. to the first one named and one per cent. to the second! Here then is the crux of the matter. Would the young woman on the farms of this country like to have a good half of this sum devoted to her needs that she may carry out her ideals for rural betterment?

Then let her think and talk about what she wants. Let her discuss it in her house and among her friends. Who knows but one young woman may devise some new thing that will not be thought of anywhere else in all the world! Every new idea has to start somewhere; it must be born in the midst of the needs of some one person or family. It may be merely two crossed sticks rubbed together, yet this may light the fires for a whole world. And suppose that the one person who thinks of the one best thing should be too timid about the value of any idea of hers, should have so humble a mind about her own mental product that she will name it to no one and so let the thought fall to the ground and go to nothing! Do not let this happen: let every happy idea be talked out in a letter to the Secretary of Agriculture, stating the need and making the suggestion.

The young women all over the country are showing a keen interest in the outcome of this project. The universities that receive Federal aid, who are to have charge of using these moneys, are setting apart the share that is to go to the home economics work; sometimes it is one-half, sometimes only a fifth; but every State must make some generous a.s.signment or it cannot live with itself in the future. Women have but to make their interest known and--talk about it! to gain attention to their wish. Bret Harte has somewhere made a character say something about "poor lovely helpless woman." Another speaker answers, "No, she is armed to the teeth--she has her tongue." This primordial weapon of woman's--a far better sword than the man's--can be used to good effect now; and if she does this she may see some of her dreams fulfilled.

For instance, suppose the household adminstrator should look out over the piles of work to be done before nightfall and should say to herself, "Oh, deary me! I wish some one would just come along and tell me how to do this so that I could get it done in shorter time!" She not at all realizes that she has struck a very great idea. This is the thought that came into the heads of agricultural committees in several States and countries. In our land only it remains till now to hear it imperatively voiced. Perhaps we may understand this better if we recall that American women, because of the chivalry of our men, the freedom of our inst.i.tutions, and the high standard of our domestic morality, have been more advanced in personal liberty and efficiency than the women of other countries, have been far more ready and able to cope with the difficulties of life on the farm, and therefore have not had the depression and the weakness that have taken the light out of the eyes of women in the rural parts of other lands. Moreover, in our country, the pioneering period is not so very far back of us. We are still near to the effects of that discipline, which developed in us the hardiness that makes it easier for us to bear the burden of work and the strain of the struggle than women not thus developed could sustain. For all this we should be properly grateful and forget as soon as may be the losses that we have been obliged to sustain while we were gaining this hardihood.

To return to the need for a wise helper and adviser. That efficient person coming along the road to tell the woman on the farm how to arrange her work so that its burden may be lessened, would in one or two European countries be a well-known figure in the farming community. She would be welcomed and would take her place in the family for a time till she had filled the minds of the members of that family circle with much wisdom from her well-filled stores and had shown them by practical demonstration the "why" and the "how" of many a new method of making ends meet, of making long hours short, and of turning off work. After supper she would be with the children for a time and let some light in upon their puzzles; then when they had gone to bed she would talk every difficulty over with the farm wife and the husband too; at least we may be sure that she would do this if she were in this country, though perhaps she would not in the Land of the Hausfrau; and being thoroughly trained in gardening and in the treatment of all the animals that may come under the care of the woman on the farm, whether pigs, lambs, bees, or chickens, as well as in house sanitation, the care of the sick, laundry-work, needle-work, embroidery and crochet, she can come very near to the heart and the hands of her attentive hostess in the farm home.

In this country the woman who is trained to perform this service will be called a Farm Bureau Agent. According to a late letter from the Secretary of Agriculture to his Crop Correspondents, it is the intention of the Government to have in time such agents as these in every county in the United States.

It is such a service as this that the so-called Smith-Lever Bill now projected by the Federal Government would provide for--that is, if the young women of the country will show that in their future homes they would like to have a distinct advance upon the homes of the past. To establish a faculty of trained women to go from home to home all over this land, making periodical visits and putting the results of their training at the command of the women everywhere, is the ideal dwelling in the minds of the workers for this form of instruction. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of women will be needed. They are now preparing for their work, not in sufficient numbers as yet, but soon there will be many who are prepared and willing and glad to lay their ability and their expert skill at the feet of this service.

Let another possibility be suggested. Suppose that a distracted young housewife on some prosperous farm will sit down among a great pile of women's papers that she takes out of the abundance of her means and the activity of her imaginative idealism, and cry out as she reads the many articles and the innumerable columns of suggestions, "O I should like to have a perfect house and a wonderful system of housekeeping! But all these things confuse me--there is really too much to do. I wish I could see just one perfect house, right down in the village there, where I could go and see for myself how it all ought to be done." She again, has little idea that she has. .h.i.t upon a great discovery, a very great idea.

She does not realize that the House for Demonstration of Home Economics is entirely within possibility and is a thing that ought to be within the reach of every woman in the land. Such a House should be in every village and town and within "team-haul" distance of every farm. It should be a social center where every week in the year the women of the region may come and meet one another and talk over their problems. It should be in charge of a scientifically trained woman whose sole business should be to stand there and be a help to every woman within reach who has a single question in home economics to ask. She should know the best ways to do everything about the farm home, the best ways to do them with the machinery at hand, and also the best household machinery to get and the most advantageous changes to be made for the sanitary and artistic and health conditions in each individual home. It is a large order, but the young women who offer themselves to be prepared for such work must and we believe will measure up to the need.

Here is indeed a mission for the trained Country Girl.

Although the words "home economics" have not heretofore appeared in papers set before our legislatures, our Government has been for years giving aid to the farmer's wife through many pamphlets on subjects related to her work. From the Bureau of Animal Industry we have advice concerning the health of the farm animals, concerning meat, b.u.t.ter, eggs, wool, leather, diseases, meat inspection,--all of which are matters of vital importance to the home; in the Bureau of Chemistry studies are made on the composition of many things used in homes: sugar, bread stuffs, preservation of fruits, pure food laws, storage, and other subjects of value to the household administrator; the Bureau of Plant Industry gives us information regarding crops for food for animals and humans, protection of plants from injurious diseases, how to domesticate plants and how to secure variety in foods; the department of Entomology aids us in our warfare against flies, mosquitoes, ants, moths, etc.; the Agricultural library sends us bibliographies; the Experiment Stations investigate in every direction; the Office of Public Roads tries to bring markets and farms closer together; and so the work goes merrily on, full of beneficent endeavor. Does the Country Girl sufficiently appreciate our Uncle Sam? Does she make the most of his efforts in her behalf?

Any girl that has learned to take pen in hand and can command the value of a postage stamp can send a respectful request to the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., asking for the list of bulletins on the farm home and on problems connected therewith. When she has received this and has read it carefully, she will be full of thoughts no doubt on subjects about which she would like help. She can then write again to the Department at Washington asking for the bulletins on the particular subject that interests her. For instance suppose she is interested in the subject of bee-culture. She should write and ask for a bulletin on that subject. One girl on a Western ranch is very much interested in the subject of--what do you suppose? It takes a keen, unprejudiced mind to show this interest;--it is nothing more than weeds! Studying into this, she finds that all the books she can get hold of give her very little help because they do not refer to the conditions in that part of the world where she lives. So she is going to study the divergencies she sees between books and facts. She has sent everywhere for bulletins and books, and has now a considerable library on the subject; and she has gone vigorously to work to mark out all the differences between her own experiences and those that are recorded in the books. In time her records will be added to those, and she will have been of great service to the world by giving new knowledge that may be used for the benefit of her whole region. In this way the Country Girl, however lonely the farm where she lives, may feel that she is in touch with great movements, and can believe that her life is of especial use to the world.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ILLS OF ISOLATION

The fruits of modern inventive skill and enterprise have enriched country life and have banished forever the extreme isolation which used to vex the farm household of the past. The farm now is conveniently near to the market. The town, churches, and schools are near enough to the farms. The world's daily messages are brought to the farmer's fireside. And the voice of the nearest neighbor may be heard in the room though she may live a mile away.

--_Professor G. W. Fiske._

CHAPTER XXII

THE ILLS OF ISOLATION

"Isolation" is a word that the Country Girl does not very much use, but still she feels the meaning of the word. This note sounds in the unusually frank answer of one who did not speak for herself but said that she really thought some of the other girls went away to the city because there was no one in the village for them to marry, and in the nave words of the girl who stated that she always said a club was a very good thing. Where the community does not afford the social life they crave as a part of their development, as the natural normal state for their self-expression, and as a part of their plans for life, it is no wonder they seek it elsewhere. This is one of the chief causes of the cityward tendency. For this reason the girls are willing to exchange the pure air of the country for the close atmosphere of the town; the safe and kindly surroundings of the rural home for the dangerous conditions of the city, its unregulated contacts, its promiscuity and its perils, and its loneliness in the midst of the indifference of strangers. There is a forbidding solitariness in the city that is to that of the country as a desert to a garden. This misery attacks one even more virulently on the noisy boulevard than along the whispering country lane. But this the Country Girl does not know, and she seeks relief from a woe that she does understand.

Perhaps the young woman on a lonely farm in some remote region does not realize this. She may be too dulled and discouraged by the effects of isolation to know either what is the trouble with her or even that there is any definite thing the matter.

The lack of companionship is indeed a very real hardship; for companionship is necessary to our growth as well as to our happiness.

The solitary girl on the remote farm or in the obsolescent village has small share in this form of education and remains with her resources undeveloped. For her natural and normal education she needs a great deal of a.s.sociation with other young growing human beings; something therefore must be devised to supply this need or the Country Girl will not have the happy and well-rounded life on the farm that is her right.

One woman in giving reasons why she preferred the city said she would "rather have folks than stumps!" Truly. Very few farms, however, consist solely of what is represented by the expressive word "stumps"; and as for "folks," it is possible to have in city life a plethora of social contact so that leisure for thought, reading and study, or for any form of self-development, is unknown. Besides there are "folks" and "folks"; and a neighborhood full of cousins and friends is an unsurpa.s.sed shelter for the favorable growth of the young human being.

But ah! there is the very point. A neighborhood! If every Country Girl had a neighborhood to grow up in, a group of homes about her to afford her companionship, she could ask nothing better. But there are many girls living on remote and lonely farms far away from any neighborly environment; to such as these the isolation is a very real sorrow. It falls as heavily upon the farmer's daughter as it does upon the farmer's wife--even more heavily if possible, for she is generally led to realize her need at a time when her social instincts are most insistent. To make for the young woman in the farm home a life so interesting, so fascinating, so full of purpose and of the possibilities of self-expression, that the loss of "folks" will to some extent be made up to her, and to give to her as much companionship as possible and the effects of companionship through all known means that can be devised, should be the object of an earnest and widespread effort.

A visit made to a country girl who lived at a farm that was on a steep hillside in a lonely part of the world far from any town or village, left a very deep impression. I was riding through that region with a cousin on my way to the railroad twenty miles off.

"In that house," she said, pointing to a dilapidated farmhouse nearly smothered in greenery and totally unkempt in appearance, "lives a relative of ours, a second cousin. We must stop and see her."

"Oh, no," I cried out, for I was then young and selfish; "don't let me have to see any more relatives to-day."

"Yes, we must stop," said my firm cousin. "She is a good girl and will remember it always if you stop, and will be bitterly disappointed if you do not."

We drew up; a figure promptly appeared on the rickety porch and came down between the tall gra.s.ses that almost obliterated the path to the torn gate.

"How old is she?" I whispered.

"About twenty-eight; yes, twenty-nine next December."

"She looks forty," I said.

"You must remember she has had a hard time on this farm--it's no good, the farm, and she and her father live here alone now."