MODERN "MAUD MULLER."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19502, 4 December 1926, Page 2 (Supplement)

MODERN "MAUD MULLER."

©WINS A SCYTHE CONTEST. A modern Maud Muller outdistanced with the scythe a field of 12 masculine mowers ranging from youths to veterans in the hand-mowing contest put on as part of the closing day of the annual Farmers' and Home-Makers' Week," at the University of New. Hampshire, gays the Christian Science Monitor. Miss Helen Berrmhy, 19 years of age, of North Danville, New Hampshire, turned the contest into a surprise as complete as that which another 19-year-old girl, Gertrude Ederle, sprung when she swam the English Channel in faster time than anv man had done it. > Miss Bernaby, the onlv woman in the contest, cut a swath 288 A ft. long and 10A rows wide in the five minutes' time, easily a longer row than that mowed hv any/of the 12 men, some of whom had swung a sevthe in more than two score harvests. She learned the art by herself on her fiber's farm, she explained, having watched the men at work and beginning to trv her hand at it when she was .about, 10 years old She had nut in no cnecial trainins for the event She swung her sevthe in the mendow all day. not for nractire. but simnlv because it was time to cut the hav. Shin arose at 4.30 am„ the mor nine chores, came to Durv ->m to the mowing contest and won it. That was all. The nnze was about £3. At h<sr home with her parents. Mr, and Mrs. ,Tobn TW'nahv.. the girl mowing champion hap the mnnine of th» farm Inrrrdv in her hands, for her father is a contractor and frprmentlv awav at work " He was on hand, however, to en'ov her in the mowinc contest. T\fic<s PornaKv likes farm h'fp much het+pr tV, a n the citv, nlthnnrrh she was V»orn in Snn F-oncicrn anr* her ftar«nts hVed in VW York onrl TWton until c>ip was putM <r«ar« nM before innvnfl to Now Vnerfnnd form TVpre =he keen* in nractice. pt mowing hv. cn*t,. in«T (yrppn fnpd fnr ftifi T2 COWS which she milks everv morning.