18 THE GARDENING YEAR 



and one of the hopeful signs about these days of 

 the Great War, signs which most surely will be 

 recorded in golden letters by the future historian, 

 is the important part that women have played in 

 leading many national movements. It is un- 

 necessary to enumerate all the inquiries that they 

 have openly or indirectly initiated, the new de- 

 velopments that they have energetically supported. 

 During days of exceptional trial, called upon 

 silently to give up their nearest and dearest, they 

 have done so with the courage that is firmly united 

 to patriotism and therefore recognises no love of 

 self. 



Without a murmur, full of hopefulness, they 

 have continued with vigour to do good work, 

 finding thereby that inward satisfaction, if not 

 happiness, which accompanies all honest endeavour. 

 It was only necessary for an expert to hint at a 

 subject which called for inquiry, and the women of 

 England rose to the occasion with that splendidly 

 undeviating determination which is so markedly 

 theirs. Only, perhaps, one important subject was 

 at the outset ignored, and this was the necessity 

 for an increase of energy in all that related to our 

 home-grown food supplies. It is true that the 

 attention of the public, more especially that of the 

 owners of large private gardens, was called to it 

 by the Royal Horticultural Society, and a ready 

 response was shown by the vigour of work whereby 

 gardens were cropped with extra vegetables. At 

 the same time, it must be confessed that the wider 

 aspect of the cultivation of land, wherein is com- 

 prised all that concerns a proper utilisation of fruit 



