40 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



employment may be developed for women of small means 

 out of the modern increased taste for gardening. In 

 many of the suburban districts the dulness of the small 

 plots of ground in front of the houses is entirely owing to 

 the want of education in the neighbouring nurserymen, 

 whose first idea is always to plant Laurels or other coarse 

 shrubs. The owners of such villas have little time to 

 attend to the garden themselves. A lady gardener might 

 easily undertake to lay out these plots in endless variety, 

 supplying them throughout the year with flowers and 

 plants suited to the aspect of each garden. The smaller 

 the space, the more necessary the knowledge of what is 

 likely to succeed. Another opening may be found in 

 cases of larger villas, where single ladies might prefer a 

 woman head-gardener with a man under her to do the 

 rougher and heavier work. The maintaining of a garden 

 and the tending of a greenhouse is work particularly 

 suited to women of a certain age. A small greenhouse 

 never can be productive of flowers for picking through 

 the dull months without a great deal of thought, care, 

 and knowledge. It seemed to me that the lady pupils 

 at Swanley were too young to profit by the instruction. 

 The parents who sent them there evidently looked upon 

 it as an ordinary school. Surely eighteen or twenty is a 

 better age than sixteen for a woman to know whether 

 she really wishes to learn gardening professionally or not. 

 The employment of women as gardeners is still very 

 much in embryo, although two of the Swanley pupils 

 have been accepted at Kew. 



March 10th. The Aucubas fruit well with us, and a 

 branch of their bright shining green leaves and coral 

 berries looks exceedingly well in a Japanese wedge and 

 lasts a long time. We plant the male and female plants 

 close together, but I am not sure that that is necessary. 



March 12th. Asparagus should be planted now, and, 



