SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 24 1 



Mrs. Meade — Dr. Hall, in his very interesting jiaper, gives the 

 preference to the English peo})le. T am not willing to admit that 

 they understand or obey the laws of hygiene, or live better than we 

 do; nor am 1 willing to admit that, as a peoi)le, they are stronger 

 than the American people. There is an art in cooking that many 

 housewives have failed to master. We eat too fast and ruin our di- 

 gestive organs. Not long since I heard a pajjer, by Hon. John P. 

 Reynolds, on the adulteration of food, and I felt thankful that I was 

 a farmer's wife, and could know what T ate and drank. 



Mr. Brown — 1 take issue with the gentleman who thinks lu)r- 

 ticulture a healthy occupation. Attending horticultural meetings is 

 decidedly health}' as well as agreeable, but when a man goes into 

 the business to make a living, he soon uses himself up. 



An exceedingly interesting paper was now read — 



wo:men in horticulture. 



BY JONATHAN PERIAM. 



Mr. P)csi(lent, Gentlemen, and Ladies of the Society: 



The theme given me for treatment to-day, " Women in Horti- 

 culture,*' if it was intended to comprise a list famous for orignal in- 

 vestigation, and thence handed down to us through the literature on 

 the subject, might be comprised in a very few words. Women have 

 been the instigators to improvement, rather the improvers them- 

 selves. From the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, caused to be built 

 by an ancient monarch to })lease his queen, down to the present gen- 

 eral taste for, and love of, landscape adornment, with all that is 

 thereby understood under ))resent high civilization, woman's part in it 

 is more the passive than the actual working integer; the prompter 

 rather than the performer. Not but there have been notable ex- 

 amples in every age, where women have worked as well as counseled. 

 In the former case it has generally been the result of peculiar cir- 

 cumstances; in the latter the examples are more general. 



It is the innate love of the beautiful, seen especially in young 

 girls of every age, as distinguished from the more prosaic of the 

 male sex, a love which grows with their growth, and enlarges with 

 their intelligence. It is shown more in poetic fancies, their love of 

 dress, of beautiful combinations of color, of intense desire in all 

 that actuates them. Where high civilization is possible, may be 

 possibly, hence the easier attainment of the comforts of life, and 

 especially in this free country, where so great a proportion of the 

 homes of the people are actual freeholds, it is not strange that 



