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.