4th March, A. D. 1897. 



ESSAY 



BY 



MARY E. CUTLER, Holliston. 

 Theme : — Gardening for Women. 



Ten years ago such a subject would have been presumptuous. One 

 field only was believed to be opened to woman. If she could not 

 find sufficient occupntlon for herself in the house she was deemed 

 either a poor housewife, or, if her housekeeping was beyond reproach, 

 unduly ambitious. Many women acted as school teachers. But this 

 was scarcely an exception to the rule, as the teacher simply intensifies 

 and extends the activity of the mother. Under pressure of hard 

 necessity women and girls worked in shops and factories, but they 

 were regarded as unfortunates by the greater part of the community. 

 On the one hand, their employers did not feel compelled to give them 

 wages equal to those earned by men. On the other, many of their 

 early companions considered themselves justified in cutting the 

 acquaintance. A woman farmer ! Preposterous ! The only idea 

 conveyed by the words was that of the German peasant woman, clad 

 in gaudy clothing, wearing heavy wooden shoes, and submissively 

 following her lord and master through the ploughed field — in extreme 

 cases assisting the donkey to drag the plough. 



What at the end of ten years? The most potent fact is that woman 

 has entered almost every field of industry. If you demand the rea- 

 son I must answer that there are several. Chiefly the fact, that in 

 America, there is always a tendency to utilize waste energy. Among 

 secondary causes may be enumerated these : The ever felt need of 

 delicacy and tact in religious and medical work has produced the 

 deaconess in the one department, and the woman nurse and physician 

 in the other. Tlie need of manual training teachers has drawn 

 women to study wood and metal working with pedagogic ends in 



