252 TKANSACTIONS OP THE HORTICULTURAL 



case. There are no healthier persons than florists, who pass a large 

 part of their lives in greenhouses saturated with the odor of various 

 plants and flowers. It is the lack of fresh air that enervates, and no 

 life suffers sooner than plants deprived of air. Another error is in 

 supposing that flowers are made to look at when they grow. It is 

 nonsense. They were made to be cut, and when freely cut they 

 bloom all the better. There may, indeed, be specimens to be re- 

 served for a special purpose, or those that do not bloom freely. The 

 family may be safely left to discriminate in this direction. If the 

 discretion is left to the mother or grown daughters, w^io have had 

 the raising of the flowers, they will soon show the true mission of 

 woman in horticulture, and the children will soon come to know 

 when to keep hands off. Even in the arrangement of the beds and 

 the care of them, the smallest may be permitted to do such share of 

 the work as they may properly undertake. 



In all this talk about the extension of woman's province in 

 horticulture, I am simply stating possibilities, and enforced ones at 

 that. I return to the true sphere of woman in horticulture, and 

 that is the adornment of home. If woman must labor outside 

 her own proper sphere in well-to-do life, the whole department of 

 horticulture offers superior and pleasanter labor and healthier em- 

 ployment than any I know, and I speak from a practical experience 

 from my own labor of many years as farmer, stock-raiser, and then 

 as vegetable and fruit gardener. In all these my recreation was 

 ever that of floriculture. One year it might be dahlias; another 

 gladiolus. I remember I never was happier than, when as a young 

 man I had succeeded in getting together sixty varieties, combining 

 varied form and colors, out of many hundred tried. Later it was 

 bedding plants and curious forms of foliage plants. I have taken 

 many premiums on live stock. I have taken premium after premium 

 for displays of garden products, both for quality and arrangement. 

 Bat they were as nothing to the triumphs of my flowering plants 

 that had been my recreation rather than my care. The last great 

 satisfaction I experienced in floriculture was when writing my books 

 on agriculture, working at home in one of the suburbs of Chicago, 

 I filled a large bay-window with plants, and every plain window of 

 the house with something green, with the help of my wife and 

 daughters. All this gave me recreation, an,d, I think, inspiration 

 for my work. The crowning success was that they received the first 

 premium at the first great Chicago fair some years ago, as the best 

 amateur collection of house plants, besides a number of premiums 

 for special plants and hanging baskets. A lady from Iowa received 

 the second premium, and in special plants held me fully even. This 

 lady had found the second Eden; had found that the flowers of Eden 

 might be trained to the sun in this paradise of America, the sunny 

 and glorious west. 



