“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.