STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 165 



will not need to say every one to his neighbor, How shall I prevent 

 the decline of my orchard ? 



The following paper was read at the meeting, but the copy was 

 not received until too late to insert in proper place: 



LABOR. 



BY MKS. GEO. J. ROGERS, WARSAW. 



My subject, in these exciting times of anarchy and abuse of free 

 speech, is rather broad and weighty for one to select on such an 

 occasion, and no one could, in so short a time, be he ever so ready 

 with the pen, do justice to a subject on which so much has been 

 written. Therefore, we will leave Herr Most and George Francis 

 Train to take care of themselves and those whom they have incited 

 to rebellion, and Master Workman Powderly to look after the inter- 

 ests of the laboring man, and speak only of the labor of the horti- 

 culturist versus the labor of the housewife, or head of the family. 

 The word horticulturist is from the Latin hortus, a garden, and cul- 

 tiira, cultivation. The dictionary defines a horticulturist as one who 

 is versed in the cultivation of kitchen gardens and orchards. The 

 definition of the word housewife is a female economist, or a frugal, 

 careful and thrifty woman. You will notice then not only a simi- 

 larity in the words, but also in their meaning. While one studies 

 and experiments in the hope of raising the finest specimens in 

 orchard or garden, the other must carefully study and experiment to 

 care for the products of these and prepare them for the market and 

 for the best use of them in the family. And I assert that the prep- 

 aration of fruit, canning, preserving, etc., is equally as arduous as 

 rearing the same. I believe the gardener's busy season begins with 

 the month of March with the preparation of the soil for the growth 

 of vegetables and the pruning and mulching of fruit-bearing trees 

 and vines. So very nearly as early does this blustering month bring 

 extra work to the housewife. For with the advent of our first 

 strawberry in June, if a favorable season, she will have no rest 

 until the last pear, grape and apple has been cared for and housed for 

 the winter — this, the season of rest for the horticulturist, but not 

 so for the housewife. In noting the similarity in the labor of the 

 two we have not lost sight of the truth of the old adage, that 



"Man's work is from sun to sun, 

 JJut a woman's work is never done." 



And her season of rest comes only with the shades of night, 

 and ''Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." '' When the cares that 

 infest the day have folded their tents, like the Arab and as silently 

 stolen away.'' And here I would like to call your attention to the 

 fact, without at all questioning the generosity of the sterner sex, that 



