WOMEN AND FARM WORK
A NEW APPEAL ON BEHALF OF THE LAND ARMY
Arrangements have been made between the Women’s Branch of the Food Production Department, the Foreign Committee of the War Office, and the Timber Supply Department of the Board of Trade, whereby women required for the work of either of the three departments will in future be recruited into one body, to be called the Land Army. A general appeal is about to be made for women for the Land Army, and they will be allotted eventually to one or other of the branches named, as their qualifications may determine.
Women all over the country have taken very kindly to farm work. They have been particularly successful as tractor-drivers, work which required strength and endurance as well as skill. There are now several hundreds of women employed on tractors in the counties of Bucks, Cheshire, Hants, Kent, Lancashire, Oxfordshire, and Wiltshire, and they are now being added to at a rate of a dozen a week.
Women employed on the land have increased since the war from about 100,000 to nearly 300,000; and over 90 per cent of the women supplied under the scheme have given satisfaction, while for certain forms of work there is a continuous and increasing demand.