Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1881 — A WOMAN FARMER. [ARTICLE]

A WOMAN FARMER.

Mrs. Osgood, of Maine, Cuts and Baals in Six Tons of Hay |in One Day, Lewiston (Me.) Journal, Just beforte dusk, Wednesday evening, a brown-faced and pleasant-look-ing woman, with a short, weil-built figure and firm step fastened a plump, contented looking bay horse in front of the Boston Tea Store, and tossed a molasses jug out of her wagon. She wore a widow’s veil and shawl. “There,” said a gentleman, “is one of the most wonderful women in the country, Mrs. Osgood, of Minot Center the woman farmer.” So when Mrs. Osgood came out of the store, with her strong arms full of toolasses-jug, saltbox, and Ihis-and-that, the Journal scribe began to ply his interrogations. “How much hay will you cut this year?” “Twelve or fifteen tons. I’ve cut about six tons already. I commenced mowing at 7 o'clock this morn ing, and mowed most of the forenoon. I spread thirty-five common stacks of bay,and after dinner I got in four good one-horse loads, in Reason to get down here at 4 o’clock and market a lot ot berries.” “Do you cut your hay with a machine or a scythe?” "Both; I can mow either way. I have a one-horse mower.” “Do you any help?” “Only what I get from the children. There’s a girl 14 years and a bey 11, who help me a little.” “Is the girl going to make a farmer?” “I don’t know. I want to make a farmer of her, but she says she don’t like the idea very well.” “How much of a farm have you?” “I have now about forty acres. I have planted this year half an acre of onions, two acres of potatoes, three-fourths of an acre of beans, and sowed,half an abre of oats. I have done all the Work myself. I have run the farm five years, and I haven’t paid out a cent, not one cent, for help, and I ain’t going to, either iwith much emphasis). Last winter went do am in the woods, and cut and teamed out ten cords of cord wood.” “Does your farm pay well?” “Yes, it’s beginning to pay pretty well now. It was all run down when I came there and commenced work. It only cut bay enough for sr cow and a horse. .Nowit cuts twelve tons. I have dug out the rocks and leveled off the fields with my own 'hand?; so I shan’t be thrown out when I ride my mowing-machine. I keep two cows, one horse, and a lot of sheep, and.ihere are alot of hens running around.” Mrs. Osgood then started Dobbin for home. Here is a woman who finds time between planting .her acres of potatoes and onions, mowing a dozen tones of .hay, chopping ten cords of wood in snow knee-deep, and all the hard woork of running a forty-acre farm, to take care of the milk of two cows, make butter and bread, and do all the kneading, cooking, and sewing on buttons for a family of children, and yet has nothing to say about woman’s wrongs or woman’s* rights.