The League recently urged upon the Secretary for Labor, the recognition, as an economic factor, of the work of women in the household trades; the classification of these occupations, whether paid or unpaid, on a par with other occupations, and lastly, that there be undertaken a government investigation of domestic service. In this connection a long step forward has just been taken through the inquiries, which during the last two years, the Department of Agriculture has been making as to the real position of women on the farm, and has been making them of the women themselves. This came about through a letter addressed to the Secretary from Mr. Clarence Poe, Raleigh, North Carolina, under date of July 9, 1913, in which he said: "Have some bulletins for the farmer's wife, as well as for the farmer himself. The farm woman has been the most neglected factor in the rural problem, and she has been especially neglected by the National Department of Agriculture. Of course, a few such bulletins are printed, but not enough." A letter was accordingly sent out from Washington to the housewives of the department's 55,000 volunteer crop correspondents, on the whole a group of picked women. They were invited to state both their personal views and the results of discussions with women neighbors, their church organization or any women's organization to which they might belong. To this letter 2,225 relevant replies were received, many of these transmitting the opinions of groups of women in the neighborhood. The letter asked "how the United States Department of Agriculture can better meet the needs of farm housewives." Extracts from the replies with comments have been published in the form of four bulletins. Many of the letters make tragic reading: the want of any money of their own; the never-ending hours; the bad roads and poor schools; neglect in girlhood and at times of childbirth. A great many thoughtless husbands will certainly be awakened to a sense of neglected opportunities, as well as to many sins of commission. The bulletins contain appendices of suggestions how farm women can help one another, and how they may gain much help from the certainly now thoroughly converted Department of Agriculture, through farmer's institutes for women, through demonstrations and other extension work under the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, and through the formation of women's and girls' clubs.