108 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1900. 



English woman ; they :ire grown to perfection, and she always 

 finds a ready sale for them at some of the leading hotels in 

 Boston. Under the tables can he seen beds of mushrooms, and 

 she is as equally successful in growing that vegetable, giving 

 all her time to this work. 



I hope it is no egotism to state that in both the floral and 

 vegetable departments of horticulture, in which I have been en- 

 gaged for the past fifteen years, I have been entirely successful. 

 You may wonder why I, a woman, should be engaged in this 

 occupation. But I was brought up in the business of market 

 gardening. My father followed it before me, and being led to 

 it both by circumstances and inclination, I naturally took it up. 

 I must have had a strong love for the work, or I should not 

 have followed it as I have continuously until now. I shall 

 endeavor to show the business of gardening for women to be a 

 profitable one. But let none deceive themselves by supposing 

 that these profits are attainable without steady personal applica- 

 tion. My home of sixty-eight acres is located in Holliston, 

 Mass., on the Boston & Albany R. It., twenty-live miles from 

 Boston, thus being well located for gardening. The land gently 

 slopes to the southeast and northwest, so that I can get two 

 crops of early vegetables on the southeast slope, and peach 

 orchards and later crops on the northwest. The branches that 

 I am most interested and enoajjed in are flowers, vegetables and 



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fruits. Peach orchards occupy a large corner of my farm, and 

 have been a source of profit. The prospect so far this season is 

 favorable for a full crop of peaches, as frequent tests show. Of 

 course we cannot tell what will happen yet before May. 



A number of peach growers in my locality have lifted mort- 

 gages from their farms by means of their peach crops. 



When the trees are young, vegetables and small fruits can be 

 grown between the rows, thus using all the available land. 

 Apples, pears, plums and small fruits I also grow for profit. 



The question that confronts us today is, what can we do with 

 the vast army of poor women who crowd the tenement houses 

 of our vast cities (many of them having no permanent homes, 

 and in many cases do not care for any), to educate, elevate and 



