STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 181 



mas, Easter and various holidays, there is great demand for ever- 

 greens, mosses, berries, lichens, and all woodland treasures which 

 make beautiful and lasting decorations. It has often paid persons 

 living at quite a distance, to gather these and to send them into 

 cities. A few women in the tropical south, far west, abroad, or in 

 any favorable locality for seeing new and rai'e things, get employ- 

 ment as collectors of specimens for botanical and other societies. 

 Ladies who thoroughly qualify themselves by an actual and ex- 

 tended field practice in analyzing, are quite certain to have oppor- 

 tunities for teaching botany, a work generally reserved for them 

 and always considered peculiarly appropriate. None of the pur- 

 suits above suggested will be apt to give an entire support, except 

 general farming or poultry raising, but any of them will nicely 

 supplement small incomes, and, at the same time be pleasing and 

 healthful. Many of them are not inconsistent with other employ- 

 ments. 



Some outdoor work does not yield immediate pecuniary returns, 

 but is ultimately of importance. People, by living solely for the 

 present, can be " penny wise and pound foolish." That they may 

 have a few more acres in wheat, farmers often cut down choice 

 timber, regardless of its worth as a wind-brake and as a retainer of 

 moisture, moderating the air for rods around, and also of its great 

 future value in wood and lumber, prices of which are constantly 

 advancing. Wasteful methods of conducting the lumbering busi- 

 ness are decreasing American forests with frightful rapidity. La- 

 dies can interest themselves in the preservation and care of natural 

 woodlands. They can join in forestry associations. By planting 

 land to valuable timber, like locust and black walnut, a hundred 

 per cent, has been realized in after years. The consumption of the 

 walnut is more rapid than its natural increase. For many uses, 

 neither other woods nor iron can equal it. Western tree-claims 

 are becoming quite fashionable possessions for women, many of 

 whom are themselves assisting in or superintending the planting 

 and cultivation. The money expended for producing natural beau- 

 ties on a place is always got back in selling, generally with high 

 interest, but very rarely that invested in buildings, never so good 

 as when new. Follow Nature, who hangs ivy 'round ruins and 

 covers fallen trees with moss. The fashion of handsome grounds 

 will prove as taking as any other. Whoever surrounds herself 

 with beauty will lead her neighbors to do likewise, and, in a short 

 time, there will be not only one fine place but a fine street, a fine 

 section of couutr}^ perhaps finally a "banner" county. The wealthy 



