As well as ploughing and sowing the fields, these girls do manure carting and spreading, grinding, and root-pulling. They also groom the horses, mix the food, feed the stock, and clean out the cowsheds and stables. Describing another branch of her work recently, Miss Mathews wrote: “During the severe weather we had a strenuous time thrashing. All hands were requisitioned, and the engine was kept going from 7.30 a.m. till 6 p.m., with only an hour’s break for lunch. This, of course, meant very hard days and long hours, not to mention the dust. Miss Hughes and I were put on to pitching from the rick, and mighty strenuous work it is. It was amusing to discover that we had the most tiring job; naturally there wasn’t a rush for it by those who knew.” In addition to their farm work, Miss Mathews and Miss Hughes do their own cooking and housework; therefore they are really doing a man’s work outside, but without the prepared meal and the immediate rest that most men can look forward to after work. Another branch of agriculture which women are beginning to take up with success is work with heavy motor tractors. Miss Ursula Winser and Miss Mollie Jameson are good examples of women who do this sort of work. These girls have been driving a tractor-plough in Shropshire. They volunteered for the work at a time when the local farmers were in despair at their inability to use the only tractor in the district, the last available driver having been called up for military service. The girls had had some experience of motors, Miss Winser having been “chauffeur and odd man” when working as a V.A.D. in a hospital at the beginning of the war. She was not accustomed, however, to a type of car of which the starting-handle alone weighs many pounds. Moreover, in order to be taken along a road from one field to another, a tractor requires to have the “spuds” taken off the wheels. These are strips of steel, put on with two bolts and nuts each, and there are twelve spuds on each wheel, usually thickly covered with mud and oil, so their removal is no drawing-room job. But Miss Winser and her friend were not to be daunted. In spite of their lack of experience, and further hampered by a large audience, which assembled, in a spirit inclined to mockery, to watch their efforts during their first days of work, they ploughed on in the most literal sense, conquering their difficulties and gradually acquiring mastery over the tractor. Miss Winser and Miss Jameson take the work of driving the tractor and managing the plough by turns, the former being very hot and the latter very cold work. They have now worked the tractor for some months, taking it over considerable distances to farms all through the district. They are able to plough from four to five acres of land in a day, and have recently started training some of the local girls in this work. XXII MISS EVELYN LYNE AND MISS MADGE GREG