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Farmers' Girls

Farmers' Girls image
Parent Issue
Day
30
Month
December
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Tliere are many farmers througnout the country who are sufficiently liberal to the boys, but who think that girls' wants should bc supplled as they suggest themsclves, and -with no regard for individual preference, says the Philadelphia Times. After harvest, the son, who haa driven the reaper or helped at threshing, has his share of the profits to control and do with as he pleases. Certain of the stock have been given him- a pig, a calf or a colt, which he will evcntually sell and put the proceeds in his pocket. The farm offers all sorts of opportunities for earnings, great or small, to which hls right is never (iiicstioned. By and by he drives his own horse, joins a club, buys books and goes to college- a right which he has earned, and to which he is fairly entitled. With the girl it is usually very different. It never occurs to any one that she, too, wouW enjoy a srnall income which she could count upon as her ver-y own, and invest as she saw fit without restraint or objection. The butter and eggs are sometimes her special commodity, and from their sales she has a limlted supply of pocket money. But lt is extremely limited and frequently very uncertain. Yet her labor in the homo "about the place" has done as much toward establishing the family prosperity as the labor of her brother. She is up at daybreak to get breakfast ready. She prepares, frequently unassisted, three meáis a day for 365 days in the year. She does the washing and ironing, the sewing and mending, and is still at her work long after her brother is in bed and asleep or away visiting the neighbors. She, too, has an additional tax during harvest and at those seasons when the work upon the farm is especially heavy, but she rarely rcceives any reward for the extra service required of her. It Is a manifest injustice. A good many overcareful fathers excuse themselvea upon the plea that girls have no Judgment in money matters. Well, they certainly will never acquire wisdom ■without exporience, and they cannot gain experience if the means for so doing are wlthheld. The financial faculty in most women lies dormant for lack of exercise, but it has been marvelously developed when put to the test. There are thousands of women in the country, widows, who have assumed the management of affairs upon the death of the husband, who have succeeded brilliantly, when the better haif failed; the mortgage is pald off, stock improved, modern farming lmplements have been purchased, and the crops cuHivated according to modern and Intelligent ideas. The proflt-sharing system should include glrls as well as boys, and there is no questlon but that it wlll pay.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Register