Category: Food Preservation

Home Demonstration Work–Hardworking Montana Women

~ Hometown Girl ~ 3 Comments

Hello, again History Lovers,

Today we celebrate the accomplishments of hardworking farmwives from Valley County, Montana in 1920. Members of the local farm bureau focused on four areas of development for the year– sewing, gardening and canning, cheese-making, and establishing clubs in which the boys and girls learned gardening and poultry raising. The amount of meat, chicken, fruits, vegetables, eggs, and cheese preserved by these busy women was phenomenal. They even produced over 1,500 pounds of homemade soap; all while keeping up with daily meals, dishes, laundry, and housework.

Enjoy!

Hardworking Montana Farm Women

Long distances, a dry season, and the fact that they must share their Home Demonstration Agent “fifty-fifty” with another county have not discouraged the Farm Bureau women in Valley County, Montana, nor kept them from accomplishing splendid results through organized effort.

In 1920 the women of this county started four definite lines of work: Clothing, gardening and canning, cheese-making, and boys’ and girls’ club work. There are 250 women members in the 25 communities of the County Farm Bureau and the work of the year has been carried on through county and community project leaders, with the help of Miss Gertrude Erickson, Home Demonstration Agent.

The gardening-canning work did not assume such large proportions as was expected because the extremely dry season made it difficult to raise good gardens but even so, the work done, was most worthwhile. In one group of twelve homes in the county, the families are having a more varied and healthful diet because of the 1,278 quarts of vegetables canned by the farm bureau women who entered the county garden contest.

Four clothing schools and one millinery school were held during the year. One woman was so ambitious and so eager for the work that she drove miles to attend the millinery school in one community and then later in the week drove 15 miles to attend a dress form demonstration being held in another community.

Six poultry culling demonstrations were held. In one community the members of the boys’ and girls’ poultry flocks club went out in relays and culled the poultry flocks throughout the neighborhood. So successful were they, that the women in that community report that they have not killed a single laying hen since the flocks were culled.

Altogether the Farm Bureau women in the county report:

  • 6,702 quarts of vegetables canned
  • 4,488 quarts wild and other fruit canned
  • 884 quarts of chicken canned
  • 1,488 quarts of other meat canned
  • 632 pounds of cheese made
  • 10,092 pounds of meat cured
  • 39 dress forms made
  • 1,075 dozen eggs preserved
  • 1,608 pounds of homemade soap
  • 24 schools serving hot lunches

This remarkable group of women, with the help of a Home Demonstration Agent for halftime, reported organized work amounting to $15,171. This is, of course, a minor part of the total value, for the big result of such work is in community service, better health, getting acquainted with each other—all those things that go to make the best homes and the best communities.

~FWM

The above article was originally published in The Farmer’s Wife–A Magazine For Farm Women, May 1921; Webb Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota. Articles may be edited for length and clarity.

Plan Your Garden For Year Round Produce

~ Hometown Girl ~ 3 Comments

Hello, again History Lovers,

Planning a kitchen garden to grow enough for a family’s immediate needs as well as plenty to be preserved against the scarcity of winter and early spring is the advice offered by The Farmer’s Wife–A Magazine For Farm Women in February 1922. Self-reliance was essential for farm families in order to feed themselves throughout the year. Every ounce of the garden produce was eaten fresh, stored in a root cellar, canned, dried, or pickled. Any scraps were fed to the chickens. Nothing was wasted.

One hundred years later my husband and I have tried to live a self-reliant lifestyle. He is an avid gardener and I am an avid canner. We made a good team especially when our children were growing up. What he didn’t grow, we bought from local orchards and farmers to can, freeze (an option that was only available during the winter months a century ago), and dehydrate. Since it is just the two of us now, we are trying to cut back on what we produce and preserve. My husband has a smallish garden spot tilled and is anxious to start planting. Too bad it snowed again last night.

Enjoy!

A Cook’s Lament

“I can’t find anything to cook!” “I don’t know what to plan for meals at this time of year!” These are mutual complaints during this season wherever two or three farm housewives are gathered together. Now, while there is still time to plan for a kitchen garden is time to prevent this food famine from recurring next year.

Lay Out Your Garden

Vintage Seed Packets 1920

After the long winter months, we all crave crisp green food and these are the first seeds we sow—lettuce, radishes, onions. Then we plant for summer days. But all too often we do not, in laying out gardens, think in terms of the late winter and early spring weeks that inevitably come when “it is so hard to find anything to cook.”

Can, Dry and Brine Vegetables

In forecasting our gardens, we must keep three very definite things in mind: (1) we must plant for the summer season when we can practically live from the garden; (2) for the early winter when it is possible to have a pleasing variety from the root vegetables that have been stored in the cellar; (3) lastly, for the late winter months when stored vegetables have lost their crispness and flavor and it is still too early to have the fresh things. The easiest way to meet this third provision is to plant a surplus of summer vegetables which are to be canned or dried or brined for winter use. The women whose shelves are thus stocked are not among those who lift their voices in the wail, “I can’t find anything to cook!”

~FWM

The above article was originally published in The Farmer’s Wife–A Magazine For Farm Women, February 1922, Page 745; Webb Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota. Articles may be edited for length and clarity.