On This Day, 13 June 1918

Birmingham Mail

Thursday 13 June 1918

WOMEN ON THE LAND.

Active work is being done, under the auspices of the Women’s Land Army, to provide female labour on the farms of Birmingham. A representative of the Government is collecting corps of girls for hay-making and work on the arable land, chiefly for hoeing and singling roots. These girls, who live at their own homes, are conveyed to the farms every morning, and are paid a flat rate £1 per week. They are expected to give an undertaking to continue in such work for a period of six months, but they are not given specialised instruction in farm work, as is done in the case of women and girls who enrol for the Land Army for the period of a year. These latter girls receive a technical training varying from a month to six weeks. For the purely local work, on the six months basis, previous experience on a farm is not necessary, as the girls work under experienced forewomen. The Land Army is greatly in need of more workers who will enrol for twelve months’ service, and to them full opportunities will be afforded for learning all classes of agricultural work, including milking.

Useful service is also being done by the members of the Women’s Volunteer Reserve in the cultivation of allotments in various parts the city and at the V.A.D. hospitals. They belong to what is known as the Lady Mayoress’s Land Gang. There is reason to believe that but for this service many plots of land now under cultivation would have been unproductive.