"THE WOMEN'S LAND ARMY"
The Land Army of Women, which now numbers over 258,300 whole and
part-time workers, has done splendid work. For some years before the
war women had been very little used on the land in certain parts of
England and Wales. In Scotland and in some of the English counties
there had always been, and still were, quite fair numbers of women on
the land.
Within eighteen months of the outbreak of war, about 300,000
agricultural laborers had enlisted and the work had been carried on
with difficulty by the farmer in the first year of the war. The farmer
secured all the labor he could, old men returned to help, and the army
released skilled men temporarily, from training, to help. Soldiers
were used in groups for seasonal work, the farmer paying a good rate
for them. Groups of women were also organized for seasonal work by
various voluntary organizations, two of these being the Land Council
and the Women's National Land Service Corps. The Women's Farm and
Garden Union also did good work. The Land Service Corps made one of
its most important objects the organization of village women into
working gangs under leaders. One interesting piece of work undertaken
by the Corps last year was finding a large number of women for
flax-pulling in Somerset. This the Flax-Growers' Association asked
them to do as sufficient local labor could not be raised. The War
Agricultural Committee made all the local arrangements. This was
pioneer work of great value and importance as flax is essential in the
making of aeroplane wings.
The Corps sent a group of 100 women under competent gang leaders.
The workers were housed in an empty country house and the War Office
provided bedding. The Y.W.C.A. undertook the catering at the request
of the Corps. The work, which was a great success, consisted in
pulling, gating, wind mowing, stocking and tying flax.
The Corps has already been asked to undertake this again next year.
Owing to the Russian troubles and the closing of the Port of Riga, it
will be necessary to put many more hundreds of acres under cultivation
and it is probable four or five times as many women will be needed
next year.
Some of the Corps members are doing good work in Army Remount Depots,
working in the stables and exercising the horses. One of the latest
interesting developments of women's work is in the care of sick
horses, carried out in the Horse Hospital in London.
Within nine months of the outbreak of war, it was clear we must secure
help for the farmers, in order to enable them to do their work. As the
submarine menace developed, and the supply of grain in the world was
affected by the numbers of men taken away from production, it was
clear we must try to grow more food.
Our grain production at the best was only twelve weeks of our supply,
and even to keep up to that seemed to be a problem.
It was clear that in agriculture, as in so many other things, women
must fill up the ranks, and in the first official appeal of the
Government for additional woman labor, the land had an important
place.
Lord Selborne, President of the Board of Agriculture, drew up a
scheme for the organization of agriculture throughout the country.
It consisted of War Agricultural Committee set up in each county who
look after production, use of land, procuring use of motor machinery,
etc., and of Women's Agricultural Committees. The latter undertake the
organization of securing women workers for the land, choosing them,
and arranging for training and placing out.
The voluntary groups of women who have been working at the problem in
the war are now practically all merged in the Board of Agriculture's
organization. The Women's Branch of the Food Production Department
now controls and arranged the whole work and Miss Meriel Talbot is the
able chief.
The Women's Land Corps, like the other organizations, was prepared to
be merged in the new Land Army of the Board and to cease to exist as a
separate organization. Its members were willing to become part of the
new Land Army.
The Board found there was a distinct need for a voluntary association
which would continue to enroll women, who could not sign on for the
duration of the war, and who were able to forego the benefits of free
training, outfit and travelling given under the Government scheme.
Over 100 members of the Corps did enroll and the original Corps
members do not require to appear before the local Selection Committees
nor to submit references, which marks the Board's confidence in the
Corps.
Many of the Corps Workers are now organizing Secretaries for the
Counties or Assistant Secretaries, or are travelling Inspectors under
the Board of Agriculture.
The Corps still organizes the supply of temporary workers for seasonal
jobs such as potato dropping, hoeing, harvesting, fruitpicking, potato
and root lifting, etc., done by groups under leaders. The work of
organizing in the Counties is carried out by the appointment of a
woman as District representative. She is responsible for a general
supervision of the work in all the villages in her district. Each
village has a woman to act as Registrar and her duty (with assistants,
if necessary) is to canvass all the village women and girls for
volunteers for whole and part time work, and for training, and to
canvass the farmer to find out what labour he needs, and in the
beginning they had to induce him to use women. She puts the farmer and
the women suitable for his needs in her own district, in touch with
each other, and passes to the District Representative and to the
Employment Exchanges the names of all women qualified to help and not
placed, and of those willing to train.
All these committees, registrars and representatives are honorary
workers. The Board of Agriculture appoints to each County for work
with the committee a woman Organizing Secretary, and assistant also
if necessary.
The Board of Agriculture, working through the Employment Exchanges
and under the direction of their women heads, arranged a series of
meetings and work of propaganda by posters and leaflets throughout
the whole country early in 1916.
The Representatives and Registrars organized the meetings to which
the farmers and the women were invited, and the whole scheme was
explained. These were very frequently held in the market towns on
market day and the farmer and his wife came in to hear after the
sales. We had to assail the prejudices of some of our farmers pretty
vigorously and of the women, too. We found the women who volunteered
best for land work were in the class above the industrial worker, and
that the comfortable and well educated woman stood its work admirably.
The farmers were stiff to move in some cases and especially disliked
the idea of having to train the women. "They weren't going to run
after women all day--they had too much to do to go messing round with
girls!" This objection was met by the Board of Agriculture arranging
training centres in every county. Some of the training was done at the
Women's Agricultural Colleges and among places that arranged training
very early were the Harper Adam's College in Shropshire (Swanley);
Garford (Leeds); Sparsholt (Winchester); The Midland Agricultural
Training College (Kingston), and Aberystwith.
The Women's Agricultural Committee have arranged a great many training
centres at big farms and on the Home farms of some of our estates.
The girls volunteering for training must be eighteen years of age.
They are interviewed as to suitability and references by the Selection
Committee. They must have a medical certificate filled in by their own
doctor or by one of the committee's doctors.
[Illustration: BACK TO THE LAND
WOMEN TACKLE A STRONG MAN'S PROBLEM]
On being passed, they go to the training centre, the travelling
expenses being paid by the Board. Outfit is free and the uniform is
a very sensible one of breeches, tunic, boots and gaiters or puttees,
and soft hat, breeches, etc., cut to measure for each girl. Training
and maintenance are free and there is always an instructor on the farm
in addition to the farmer and his workers. The travelling to the post
found, is again paid by the Government, and if work is not found at
once, on completion of training, maintenance is paid till it is.
The training is generally of four to six weeks' duration and in some
cases longer, and over 7,000 women have been trained in this way and
placed.
Appeals for land recruits were made in February, 1916, and in January
and April, 1917, when the Women's National Service Department asked
for 100,000 women.
The Land Army women after three months' service receive an official
armlet--a green band with lion rampant in red and a certificate of
honour. The Land women are the only women who receive an armlet--the
munition girl wears a triangular brass brooch with "On war service."
To induce the conservative farmer to try the women, exhibitions of
farm work were arranged in different part of the country with great
success, and the girls showed they could plough, and weed and hoe
and milk and care for stock, and do all the farm work, except the
heaviest, extremely well.
The War Office in its official memorandum of 1916 gives a long list of
the farm and garden work in which women are successfully employed, and
they have been particularly successful in the care of stock.
The farmer who used to declare he would never have a woman and that
they were no use, and who has them now, is always quite pleased and
generally cherishes a profound conviction that the reason why his
women are all right is because he has the most exceptional ones in the
country.
Housing the worker and especially the groups for seasonal work has
been a problem, but it has been done and the feeding of groups well
has been managed, too.
The housing conditions for the girl going to work whole-time are
investigated by the Board organizer, and the representatives of
committee. Very frequently a small group of girls have a cottage on
the farm.
The Inspectors of the Board are in charge of three counties each and
look after all conditions.
The girls are now being trained to drive the motor tractors for
ploughing, and for women who understand horses there is at present a
greater demand than supply.
The Women's Branch of the Board is also at this time appealing
for well-educated women to aid in Timber Supply for two pieces of
work--measuring trees when felled, calculating the amount of wood in
the log, and marking off for sawing, and as forewomen to superintend
cross-cutting, felling small timber and coppice and to do the lighter
work of forestry.
Girls and women are in market gardens and on private gardens in
very large numbers. The King has a great many women in his gardens
and conservatories. Most estates are growing as many vegetables as
possible to supply the many hospitals and the Fleet, and girls are
helping very much in this. A great deal has been done by work in
allotments, plots of land taken up by town dwellers and cultivated. In
one part of South Wales alone 40,000 allotments have been worked and
the allotment holders are organizing themselves co-operatively for
the purchase of seed, etc. We have Governmental powers now not only to
enable Local Authorities to secure unused land for allotments, but to
compel farmers to cultivate all their ground. We have fixed a price
for wheat for five years, and a minimum wage for the agricultural man
and woman.
The girls on the land improve in health and increase in weight. The
work is not only of supreme usefulness to the country--we have the
submarine ceaselessly gnawing at our shipping and making our burden
heavier--so we must produce everything possible. It has improved the
physique of our girls--they like it, and many will permanently adopt
it. Our Board of Agriculture is also encouraging, for the benefit of
the country woman, the formation of Women's Institutes, like those in
Canada and America.
In the Lord Mayor's Procession in London, on November 9, 1917, with
the men-in-arms of all our great Commonwealth of Nations, with the
Turks and the captured German aeroplanes and guns, the munition girls
and the Land girls marched. No group in all that great array had
a warmer welcome from our vast crowds than our sensibly clothed,
healthy, happy and supremely useful Land girls.
WAR SAVINGS--THE MONEY BEHIND THE GUNS
"You cannot have absolute equality of sacrifice in a war. That is
impossible. But you can have equal readiness to sacrifice from all.
There are hundreds of thousands who have given their lives, there are
millions who have given up comfortable homes and exchanged them for
a daily communion with death. Multitudes have given up those whom
they loved best. Let the nation as a whole place its comforts,
its luxuries, its indulgences, its elegances, on a national altar,
consecrated by such sacrifices as these men have made."
--THE PRIME MINISTER.
"Deep down in the heart of every one of us there is the spirit of
love for our native land, dulled it may be in some cases, perhaps
temporarily obscured, by hardship, injustice and suffering, but it is
there and it remains for us to touch the chord which will bring it to
life; once aroused it will prove irresistible."
--Sir R.M. KINDERSLEY, K.B.E.