work, and ten hours of driving work at a hot pace are not to be considered conductive to good health physically or to leave the worker in any humor for applying herself to educational improvement. Dances and shows will be the most attractive things to be indulged in after work, if the chance offer. Another thing to be considered is pointed out by Prof. E. A. Ross, formerly of the Nebraska State University, through the elimination in one way or another of the truly feminine girls. Prof. Ross asserts: "There will be a reversion to the type of masculine women, squat, flat-chested, broad-backed, low-browed creatures, working in the fields side by side with the men, the burdens of wifehood and motherhood coming but as an accident to a day of toil. "The day when a man could sell himself into slavery is in the past of all civilized countries. A further interference in the field of the so-called 'freedom of contract' cannot be considered bold. The law can tell a girl just how many hours of her time she shall sell. "I don't know that limiting the working hours to eight a day will accomplish a cure, but it will help. The great thing would be to lessen the strain." This strain that Professor Ross speaks of is not at present very strenuous in Nebraska; but it is undoubtedly increasing from year to year. This increase of female labor is heaviest in the "genteel" occupations, clerking, stenography and the like. The keen competition of business men is no greater than the fierce competition of "living." A large proportion of the young women at work are not laboring because they actually have to, which was the sole and only reason in the earlier day, but because they have caught the industrial spirit of the times and are ambitious to be "in business;" and because they have become en rapport with the fashionable striving for a larger degree of luxury and richness in personal adornment and possessions. Thus a purely fictitious need, or craving, has brought into the industrial field a large number of workers of high intelligence, sharp mentality and fine address, with a resulting loss of chance to many less ably equipped, who really need a weekly income, but must accept the minor opportunities. However, there is not much cause for worry over the status of female labor in this state at present. National statistics indicate that one-third of the women of the country between the ages of 15 and 25 years are engaged in gainful occupations. In Nebraska the percentage of women so engaged is very much smaller. United States Census Bulletin No. 71 (1906) showed there were 503,000 females in the state aged 16 years or over. Of this total 2,542 were employed in gainful work of one kind or another; one in about every 200 of population. This percentage has been somewhat increased, but not very AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS IN NEBRASKA. Farming has become a kingly profession in "the West" for the man who loves his work. Land cultivation-agriculture is one of God's great institutions; in no equal area is it greater, or its victaries stronger in faith and works, than in Nebraska. Much soreness and disappointment can take balm from this irrefutable truth. Barely ten years ago the era of big profits began for the American farmer. Our Nebraska agriculturists have in that time taken front rank, and can be called the blue-ribbon aristocrats of the profession, without fracturing the truth at all. Diversified farming has nowhere, perhaps, had a more satisfactory development, and nowhere has it resulted more profitably. Rotation of crops has been studied to great advantage; and very naturally careful selection and preservation of seed at the proper time has brought profit in increased production per acre, as well as in quality of grain. The stock-breeding end of farming has also received deep attention, so that today, with the best modern machinery, and good horses to handle it easily, one man can do vastly more than ever before was possible. Taken one year with another, no equal number of men, with equal investment, in any kind of business, have done better in a financial way than Nebraska farmers. Gone forever are the days when farmers in this state will put their dependance on any one crop, except in the rare cases where some man has proved himself peculiarly fitted to "specialize" successfully. Alfalfa and potatoes, fruits and vegetables, brome grass and cane, clover and timothy, hogs and cattle, the dairy cow and the cream separator-all these have place in the calculations of the up-to-date Nebraska agriculturists not far behind the consideration given to corn and wheat, oats, barley and rye. Scientific stock-feeding has been developed to a fine point, and Nebraska offerings have topped the markets at South Omaha, at St. Joseph and Kansas City many times. Even if it were conceded that Nebraska's crop of cereals for 1908 falls short of our expectations, the steady advance in price of our principal crops will more than compensate, in financial measurement, for any possible shortage in machine measure. Both home and foreign consumption are increasing at a tremendious rate; so great, in fact, that it is an open question if production is keeping up with the demand for food stuffs such as Nebraska soil can be made to produce in very much greater abundance than at present. An earnest and intelligent effort to increase our production per acre is being made in many sections; and it is bound to be a success under the stimulus of the Agricultural Colleges, their substations and the farmers' institutes. And we must always bear in mind the far-reaching influence for better farming methods of the increasing number of graduates of our great Agricultural College. Nebraska takes high station as a contributing factor in the boast of the United States that, while our nation comprises only 6 per cent. of the human race, we produce three-fourths of the world's corn, one-fifth of the world's wheat, and one-half of the world's cotton. And the nation, as a whole, has not come very much nearer to the possible limit of production than Nebraska has. Nebraska wheat, corn and oats, again, carry great weight in the scale which shows that, while the United States contains only 5.9 per cent of the world's area and but 5.2 per cent of the world's population, we contribute 43 per cent of the world's total production of those three mighty cereals. |