250 TEANSACTIONS OF THE HOBTICULTUEAL 



small fruits, grafting and budding, the care of kitchen-garden, and, 

 above all, the cultivation and arrangement of the running vines and 

 flowers about the household. It is true her hands may become brown, 

 and her cheeks show the flush of the rose through an olive ground, 

 but how many ladies would gladly accept the flush in exchange for 

 pallid cheeks that never are flushed except with rouge. If we must 

 accept hard labor, and, how small a proportion of human kind are 

 exempt, how much better to accept the promise that all horticulture 

 holds out than go Avithout the fruits. There is one thing certain, 

 there is nothing degrading in it; the farmer, however roughly 

 dressed, if intelligent, is the peer of any man; the girl or woman 

 fresh from the toil of horticultural art, is the equal of any lady how- 

 ever elaborate her silks and satins. 



The trouble is, farmers, as a class, work too much and read too 

 little. The woman slaves too many hours and has too little recrea- 

 tion. That is, through intelligent study, the hours of hard labor 

 might be diminished, and the outcome of the labor increased. It 

 must be the outgrowth of intelligent system in labor. 



Let us take the farm garden. As generally found, where found 

 at all, it is laid out in little beds where all the work must be done by 

 hand. It is often so confined and so square that it cannot be 

 plowed, and the digging must be done with a spade. A little read- 

 ing and a little systematized study would change all this. Plants 

 would not be put in without reference to their size and the ground 

 they recjuire. The garden would be lengthened out. It would be 

 changed into an orchard garden; the larger orchard trees along one 

 side, then the smaller, pears, cherries, plums, peaches; then the vine- 

 yard; then berries, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, currants; 

 then rhubarb, asparagus, and all vegetables that are perennial; then 

 may come the vegetable garden, and herein strawberries, for these, to 

 reap success, must be with the vegetables, as must all fruits that are 

 treated as annuals — tomatoes, egg plant, ocra melons and cucum- 

 bers. Give them plenty of room and cultivate with a horse as far as 

 possible. Then the vocation of woman in horticulture will be less- 

 ened. The gathering and preparing them will be a labor of love 

 rather than a labor of despair; and the farmer Avho finds half the 

 living of his family therein, and perhaps half enough to dress the 

 family besides, will be not only happier from his part of the labor, 

 but richer, to say nothing of having risen from the vocation of a 

 mere husbandman to the higher plane of horticultural science. It 

 will react on the children and they Avill love and enjoy the labor, 

 especially if they are permitted to enjoy the profits of something 

 therein that they may call their very own. It is the feeling of pro- 

 prietorship that adds zest to the labors of man. Should not the 

 same rule work with woman? Should it not with the children who 

 are to be the future proprietors when the parents have lived their 

 lives well? 



