308 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Latham's grapes were ripe, and mine, although I do not sup- 

 pose anybody couid have spent more time than I did, were 

 behind. 



President Underwood: I would suggest that many of these 

 valuable points might be brought out in the next paper, and 

 with your permission I will ask for the next paper, which is to 

 be read on this same subject. This is by a woman, and what 

 the men don't know, the women do. 



A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE IN VINE CULTURE. 



MRS. SOPHRONIA ERWIN, EXCELSIOR. 



I never intended to afflict the public with an autobiography, but that 

 this assembly may understand just how much grape culture means to me 

 financially, it seems almost necessary to review a little of my past history, 

 which I have no doubt has many counterparts in every section of our 

 land. 



Twenty-one years ago. when my husband, after a long, severe struggle, 

 yielded up his life for his country's sake, I was left in full possession of a lit- 

 tle home up on Laurel avenue, valued at that time at $13,000, and $5,000 in 

 money, bearing interest at the rate of 10 per cent. Being without a debt 

 in the world, this ought to have been a sufficient sum with proper econ- 

 omy to have supported myself and three little ones, the youngest then 

 under a year old; but the trouble was that the knowledge of economy was 

 an unknown quantity, and experience had to be purchased at a high prem- 

 ium. I knew nothing whatever of making purchases at a grocery, hav- 

 ing made them before my marriage only under my mother's direction, 

 and afterwards delegating that disagreeable business to my husband. I 

 had never, so far as I can recollect, been inside- a butcher's shop, and 

 wood offices were to me only another term for wood lotteries— paying my 

 money and taking whatever was sent— and this same unfitness to cope 

 with the realities of life held good on every line. I knew it and felt it 

 keenly, but the remedy for its relief came tome in very small homeopathic 

 doses. Added to this, sickness was constantly in the house. Much of 

 this I now know was due to my ignorance, also. 



Is it any wonder that in a short time I began to find my interest very 

 inadequate to the demands upon me, and the principal to melt away, I 

 could scarcely tell where? Then came the pressure of necessity to do some- 

 thing to eke out the remainder of my income and stop, if possible, the 

 drainage upon the principal. But what? My own health was miserable 

 and my children were susceptible to every current disease, besides the inher 

 iting of an unusual amount, and too young to allow to suffer from the least 

 neglect, so I must be constantly in my own home. I could only attempt 

 what has brought such untold suffering to so many over-burdened moth- 

 ers, sewing, and through one winter I struggled along with the machine 

 needle, helping myself in a wonderful manner, or so I thought, but in the 

 early spring came a time when my health gave way to such an extent that 

 my physician told me, that if I had any relatives with whom I could wish 

 to leave my children, I had better go to them immediately. 



