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Show With Food Supply Expected to Be Tighter Than Ever, Women's Land Army Faces Its Greatest Challenge t f. - . . ., , , ' J ! I . . - t s - ; ; s I v , . - s s, " ; - 1 - J I 1 j I V - - ;c 1 I ,v - . . ;VC i 4 t ' ' v f - 1 " , v 1 - - - s; ' s ?, - IH I I Probably the greatest need for seasonal help is in harvesting perishable perish-able vegetables and fruits. It is particularly important that al of the tomato crop be brought to market, as this vegetable is a cheap and abundant abun-dant source of vitamin C. x City Girls and Women j Urgently Needed for Every Sort of Farm Job Women have done an outstanding out-standing job in this war, and nowhere have their efforts been more important than in helping with the farm harvest. har-vest. Until complete victory is won, there must be no letup on the home front. In this critical year of war, the high rate of food production must be continued. At the same time, the farm labor shortage will be even more serious in many areas. The answer is for town and city people especially women and youth to step into the breach, as they have done for the past three years. Farm people themselves are working work-ing harder and longer hours than ever before. But they need extra helpers, especially during the harvest har-vest season. That group of women doing emergency wartime farm work comprise the Women's Land army. Their patriotic efforts have saved farm crops in thousands of eases. The Women's Land army is a movement rather than an organization. organiza-tion. It is mainly a seasonal army. In each state, it is under the direction direc-tion of the state extension service, with headquarters at the state agricultural agri-cultural college. Most states have a Women's Land army supervisor who works closely with the county agricultural agents and their farm labor assistants. In most localities, the county agent administers the emergency farm labor program . . . recruiting and placing workers on farms. Last year, these local placement place-ment offices . . . 12,000 over the country . . . placed about 350,000 women In farm work, and about as many other women were recruited directly by farmers or found their ; n -" ' ' 1 I - ; , j ' 7. - - t 1 r U j Her husband is fighting on some Pacific island, and she Is doing her bit on the home front by working on a Connecticut dairy farm. Her duties include milking, cleaning the barn, and caring for the calves. own jobs. These women received prevailing pre-vailing farm wages for the amount and type of work done. Besides these a great many farm women worked on their own and neighboring farms. Who Are WLA Workers? All women who help in the war-1 time production of food, feed, or fiber are a part of the Women's Land army. Women from farms, cities and towns . . . farm women who work longer hours than ever before . . . women from offices, factories and stores . . . women whose husbands hus-bands are overseas . . . housewives, college girls and teachers. . , They are women of all ages who spend all summer, all year, or only a few hours, a week end or a vacation period helping bring through the farm crops our country must have. North, south, east and west, women wom-en do all kinds of farm work. Singly and in groups, they pick beans, tomatoes to-matoes and other vegetables. They detassel corn, shock grain, pick potatoes, po-tatoes, pick and pack berries, apples, ap-ples, peaches, grapes, other fruits and nuts. They work in cotton, grain, tobacco and flax; drive tractors, trac-tors, farm trucks and combines; milk the cows and care for poultry flocks. In brief, as and where needed, need-ed, women help plant, cultivate, and harvest the food and fiber crops and i care for the livestock all so neces- sary in the war effort. Farm wives and daughters hun-' hun-' dreds of thousands of them do a ! magnificent job, helping with hay- ing, milking, feeding livestock. They handle just about every farm task, many of which they have never done before, putting in long hours at the double job of housework and farm work. Typical is one midwestern farm woman who, during corn planting time, drove a tractor from 4 to 8 a. m. each day, and then did the farm chores before starting her regular housework, which she does witiiout benefit of electricity and running water. Town Women Prove Capable. Even though town women were at first accepted reluctantly by many farmers, they have now proved them-I them-I selves in farm work. Their help is especially valuable at harvest time, for crops like apples, peaches and other fruit; for beans, tomatoes, potatoes, po-tatoes, peanuts and cotton. Teachers Teach-ers and college girls often spend two or three summer months in farm work. Business women work part of their vacation time, evenings and week ends harvesting tomatoes, beans and carrots, detasseling corn and picking apples, peaches and grapes. Homemakers also answer the local lo-cal call for peak-season harvesting. For example, in an Oregon county last year, 500 homemakers helped save the bean crop. Each day they boarded the "Housewives Special" buses leaving for the field at 8:30 a. m. and returning at 3 p. m. This gave them time to do the family breakfast before leaving and to market mar-ket for supper in the late afternoon. In Washington, as in other states, women joined groups of "twilight pickers" . . . working evenings in the big berry crop. And in a California Cali-fornia county, women working 7 to 11 p. m. as peach cutters to help save 20,000 tons of peaches by drying dry-ing were known as the "Victory Shift." Women's underlying motive for doing farm work is, for the most part, patriotism a deep desire to help ... to have a part in feeding our soldiers and our allies and an intense conviction that no food should go to waste. As a 60-year-old woman said, after picking 3 tons of beans, "I'm glad to do it . . . you see, I have a son in the air corps." Of women who do farm work, by far the greatest number live at home and work by the day, or part-time, on farms nearby. Spend Vacations on Farms. Some women, especially college girls, teachers and business women, spend part of their vacation time in labor supply camps, working on surrounding sur-rounding farms. For one week, two weeks, or the entire summer, they cultivate and pick vegetables or harvest fruit. Many Smith college students, as a part of their college's summer plan of "work or study" formed groups which lived as one household in the farming area where they worked. Camps for women workers are operated op-erated in many states. Last year, New York .state's WLA camps included in-cluded about 3.000 New York City women and girls on their vacation time. Life in camp is not all work. Women find it interesting and broadening, broad-ening, with the companionship nl women from many different places. As one worker said, atier an eve. fling of recreation in camp, "We're all friends, and that's what we're fighting for, isn't it?" Even more interesting than picking pick-ing cherries was the "contact with different people," wrote another camp worker on returning home. Her fellow campers included an Italian Ital-ian teacher, a woman who had fled from Germany, college students, a librarian, a magazine writer, a governess, and a mother of 12 children. chil-dren. In some cases, women live rightj on the farm for the summer. They I do such work as taking care of thet garden, planting, hoeing and har- vesting onions, carrots or other vegetables, vege-tables, or helping do a hired man's job. Typical of such workers are a serviceman's wife who has full care of the poultry flock on a large general gen-eral farm, and a woman who has charge of the milk room on a dairy farm. Some women serve as "hired hands." They milk, take care of the poultry flock, feed livestock, and work in the field. Of the approximately approxi-mately 9,000 women placed for year-round year-round work in 1944, many of them were wives of men employed on the same farm. How to Get a Farm Job. A woman who can work for the entire summer or for several weeks, should consult her county extension agent or local farm employment office of-fice immediately. These offices usu- I ' i ' - J f '"k f - K , . A student from William and Mary college spends part of her summer vacation picking, grading and packing pack-ing peaches in a Virginia orchard. ally are located in the county courthouse court-house or federal (post office) building. build-ing. If she cannot find this local office, she may write to the Women's Land army supervisor at her state agricultural college, or to Women's Land army, United States Department Depart-ment of Agriculture, Washington 25, . D. C. A woman who can work for only short periods of time should stand by for the call in her community. .It - will come through her local news-: news-: papers and over the radio. She will then be told when and where to . apply. , :- --s "V. . ... .'.q Business women and housewives of L .. f r . . ' . 1 Sinai, S- U., shock oats od farms near t ' ; i I . I town during the harvest season. i J i. j,-,-. - - a '""7 ... " " ."" 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