HORTICULTURE 115 



HORTICULTURE. 



WOMEN AS HORTICULTURISTS. 



BY MRS. A. A. KENNEDY, HUTCHINSON. 



If it be necessary for a woman to work to earn a livelihood, there is no 

 work she can engage in that is more healthful, more pleasant or more re- 

 numerative than horticulture. 



It not only fills our tables with luscious fruit but supplies our pockets 

 with shining silver. 



In the garden she can find ample scope for her ingenuity and skill, of 

 which most women have a plenty, if they are placed in a position to bring 

 it out. When we talk of gardening, it looks very simple. Why, I verily 

 thought, when I visited Mr. Baldwin's garden and saw what he was doing 

 in this line of work, and what he had accomplished, that I could make 

 my fortune in a very short time. But after six years of hard labor I have 

 learned this much — that I knew nothing. There is something more 

 required of us than simply to sow the seed and pluck the fruit. O, what 

 a study this is! Some of my friends call me a horticultural enthusiast, 

 but this I know: The more I study nature, the more I comprehend what 

 heights there are to scale, what depths there are to penetrate, what 

 breadths there are to compass, the more enthusiastic I become. 



It was force of circumstances that first led me to take lessons in this 

 particular branch of industry. You know it is an old saying "pigs must 

 root or die," and as it was necessary I should do something to avert this 

 dreadful calamity, I could think of nothing else that would pay as well 

 as rooting — plants. But it was not long ere I learned to love this occupa- 

 tion. It aroused faculties that had hitherto lain dormant; that I did not 

 know or realize that I possessed. In studying nature we become more 

 intimately acquainted with nature's God, and at every step as we advance 

 new beauties unfold until we become lost in wonder and admiration at 

 the attributes of this Great Being, whose greatness fills immensity, and 

 whose handiwork we can trace in the minutest particles of soil, in the 

 tiniest bud, in the full grown leaf, in the fully developed fruit, in the 

 ripening wood, in the withering leaf, and in the restful attitude they 

 assume preparatory to a reawakening on the resurrection morn, when 

 they will come forth invigorated with new life, thus showing forth the 

 wisdom of this all-wise Being. 



But I have found the horticulturist is not always carried "on flowery 

 beds of ease" to success, but, like all other mortals, they have their trials 

 but there are so many sweets to one bitter that we can well afford to put 

 up with all the unpleasantness for the enjoyment we get. If I were 

 worth my thousands I would still be a horticulturist, and strive to make 

 it a success. I want to do a little better than Moses did; I shall not be 

 satisfied with getting a glimpse of the "land where they raise such large 

 fruit," but shall try to press onward and upward till I can raise them my- 

 self—perhaps not as large as the spies found — but intend to come just as 

 near it as I can. 



