[Illustration: BACK TO THE LAND WOMEN TACKLE A STRONG MAN'S PROBLEM] On being passed, they go to the training centre, the travelling expenses being paid by the Board. Outfit is free and the uniform is a very sensible one of breeches, tunic, boots and gaiters or puttees, and soft hat, breeches, etc., cut to measure for each girl. Training and maintenance are free and there is always an instructor on the farm in addition to the farmer and his workers. The travelling to the post found, is again paid by the Government, and if work is not found at once, on completion of training, maintenance is paid till it is. The training is generally of four to six weeks' duration and in some cases longer, and over 7,000 women have been trained in this way and placed. Appeals for land recruits were made in February, 1916, and in January and April, 1917, when the Women's National Service Department asked for 100,000 women. The Land Army women after three months' service receive an official armlet--a green band with lion rampant in red and a certificate of honour. The Land women are the only women who receive an armlet--the munition girl wears a triangular brass brooch with "On war service." To induce the conservative farmer to try the women, exhibitions of farm work were arranged in different part of the country with great success, and the girls showed they could plough, and weed and hoe and milk and care for stock, and do all the farm work, except the heaviest, extremely well. The War Office in its official memorandum of 1916 gives a long list of the farm and garden work in which women are successfully employed, and they have been particularly successful in the care of stock. The farmer who used to declare he would never have a woman and that they were no use, and who has them now, is always quite pleased and generally cherishes a profound conviction that the reason why his women are all right is because he has the most exceptional ones in the country. Housing the worker and especially the groups for seasonal work has been a problem, but it has been done and the feeding of groups well has been managed, too. The housing conditions for the girl going to work whole-time are investigated by the Board organizer, and the representatives of committee. Very frequently a small group of girls have a cottage on the farm. The Inspectors of the Board are in charge of three counties each and look after all conditions. The girls are now being trained to drive the motor tractors for ploughing, and for women who understand horses there is at present a greater demand than supply. The Women's Branch of the Board is also at this time appealing for well-educated women to aid in Timber Supply for two pieces of work--measuring trees when felled, calculating the amount of wood in the log, and marking off for sawing, and as forewomen to superintend cross-cutting, felling small timber and coppice and to do the lighter work of forestry.