Squire's wife comes to the aid of a farmer: Country diary 100 years ago

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 24 November 1915

Farmers are urged to plough more land and increase our supply of home-grown corn, but some people who are well acquainted with the conditions under which farmers work doubt whether this is the right course to take. Favourable though the autumn was for outdoor work in most places, a part of the oat crop is still to gather in Aberdeenshire, and both in Scotland and parts of Wales there is still corn to harvest. This is to a great extent owing to the scarcity of labour. This difficulty, as we know well in this district, is rapidly making it impossible for any farmer to lay out work for the coming season which will entail men's labour.

Many women are coming forward to the aid of the farmer, and it is well that they are. Only a few days ago, when many farm servants were away at the statute fair, a squire's wife (the squire is away at the front) was told of a farmer friend who had many cows to milk and a quite inadequate staff to undertake the work. She at once saddled her horse, rode over to the farm, and did her share of the work quickly and well. This lady not long ago took her horse to the smithy, and, finding the smith away, selected a shoe, shod her horse, placed the money on the anvil, and rode away. I mention these incidents because there are things in rural life that women can do that many seem afraid to try.