HORTICULTURE AS A PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. 69 



also take up the positions as gardeners on the large estates of land- 

 lords. This is not so well-liked, because the woman usually is 

 not taken into the circle of the noble family and at the same time 

 has birth and education which makes her far above the other 

 people with whom she comes in contact. The daughters of these 

 landlords often take up gardening courses and return from their 

 studies to take charge of their fathers' estates. A few months ago 

 the German Government even sent a young woman to German 

 Poland to instruct some of the German emigrant families there in 

 horticulture and farming. This is of course done to strengthen the 

 position of the German element in the new possessions. A few 

 women have bought estates of their own and started fruit farms or 

 large florist establishments, but these are much in the minority. 

 In England, too, there are two very good horticultural schools 

 exclusively for women. The school at Swanley in Kent has from 

 sixty to eighty pupils each year, and turns out many women well 

 qualified to take positions as gardeners, poultry raisers, et cetera. 

 For some years women were admitted also to Kew Gardens as 

 students, but the authorities there have decided that the training 

 at Kew is unsuitable for women, maintaining that one cannot expect 

 a woman of culture and refinement to be able to push a barrow and 

 spade and fork by the side of a man for eleven hours a day unless 

 she is physically as strong as the man, and that is very rare. This 

 is the cause of the dissension in England on the subject of the "lady 

 gardener," who has been much discussed and dissected. It is this 

 position of gardener, a position which requires much and hard 

 manual labor, to which the woman is not physically equal. There 

 is but one woman out of all those who have studied at Kew who is 

 at present holding such a position in England, and she is possessed 

 of almost masculine strength. But there are other positions closely 

 allied to that of gardener, in which woman can with success make 

 use of her knowledge and love of Horticulture. Almost every city 

 finds its successful woman florist. Not far from Boston is a woman 

 who has made a pronounced success for many years of a small 

 florist trade, with a specialty of wedding, funeral, and table decora- 

 tions, for which she raises her own flowers. Several women of 

 whom I know have done this. Another woman has had splendid 

 good luck in growing carnations for the wholesale market. A 



