204 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



much worse gardener than even the English 

 farmer, and it is the woman rather than the 

 man to whom the aesthetic appeal can be 

 more readily made. 



It was difficult first of all for surveyors 

 and instructors to break the tradition of 

 letting the sow and the poultry take posses- 

 sion of the doorstep and the garden. Such 

 a thing as a creeper, or a shrub, or a fruit-tree 

 for decorative as well as utilitarian purposes 

 was unknown until the instructor began to 

 offer plants at cost prices at the various horti- 

 cultural stations, and at first, even to give 

 them away. 



Then, on a new settlement, when Mrs. 

 Pat O'Flaherty saw Mrs. Tim Murphy had 

 a prettier-looking garden and house-front than 

 hers, the spirit of emulation awoke in Mrs. 

 Pat, and she too asked for shrubs and fruit- 

 trees at cost price ; and the young wife having 

 a taste for gardening, cultivated at some 

 council school, keeps the destructive sow 

 within its own demesne. 



The other influence besides that of agri- 

 cultural education and organisation responsible 

 for the stemming the tide of emigration, has 

 been that of building labourers' cottages with 



