Groiriiir/ SnmJ/ Fruit an a Business for Women. 187 



their families go without fruit rather than to raise it, but farmers' wives are 

 interested in horticulture. They raise the flowers, and often the vegetables. 

 They attend to details. They are in sympathy with their pets, and learn 

 their habits much sooner than men do. As a rule, they are not so apt to 

 neglect their work as men are. Added to this, they have a "knack" which 

 gives them success. A skillful gardener once said that a woman with a 

 cracked teapot could root cuttings that an experienced propagator with all 

 his modern appliances would fail with. It is not hard work, nor the ability 

 to do hard work, that makes fruit-growing successful: it is the heart-work, 

 the real interest, the carefulness and faithfulness and good judgment that are 

 put into the enterprise. 



Lack of knowledge is no obstacle, for this can be acquired easily and 

 quickly. There are no secrets in fruit-growing. Those engaged in it are 

 always ready to communicate their knowledge, and every horticultural 

 society is engaged in disseminating information. 



HINTS TO BEGINNERS. 



First, post up on the work. Study your facilities, your land, capital, near- 

 ness to market, and ability to obtain needed help. 



Secure the control of some good land. It costs as much to prepare and 

 cultivate poor land as rich, and the protits are little or nothing. 



Begin in a small way. You will make some mistakes, and will have much 

 to learn. If yuu do everything well, and at the right time, you can not 

 attend to much at first. 



Plant but few varieties, and only such as generally succeed. You can 

 well afford to do without those new kinds that are "destined to supersede 

 all others." 



Be more practical than theoretical. 



Be more ready to believe what you see than what you hear. 



Take some good horticultural papers, and read them attentively. 



Join a horticultural society if there is one within your reach. 



Do your work well. Both profit and satisfaction come from a little well 

 done, rather than a large plantation grown in a slipshod manner. 



Sell no poor berries. They will injure your credit more than they are 

 worth. Use them, or give them to those who have none and can not afford 

 to buy. 



Keep your plants growing during the growing season. Injure no roots in 

 cultivating. Plants make their own repairs, but they should be better em- 

 ployed. The force expended in healing a broken root might be more profit- 

 ably used in building up the plant or storing away nourishment for the 

 next crop of fruit. 



All the berry plants do best on land that is rich, moist (not wet) and cool. 

 Without richness, there is nothing to make fruit of. Without moisture to 

 dissolve the food in the soil, it is unavailable, for all plant food is taken up 

 in solution. Without a comparatively cool soil, the plants can not remain 



