108 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



window gardening among children. The money for prizes and 

 other expenses was eonlribnted b}' a generous lad}'. The churches 

 were called on to give plants on Easter Sunday for this purpose, 

 instead of llowers ; and plants were procured from other sources. 

 All that was asked of the Society was a little start in the experi- 

 ment. Exhibitions were held in the hall through the summer, and 

 those who had initiated and watched over the movement felt much 

 encouraged by the interest manifested. It was hoped that it might 

 be continued by the Societ}-, but this hope was not realized. 

 The specimens shown by the children were not as good as those 

 that usually grace our tables, and perhaps some of the members 

 feared that the plants might be attributed to them. 



The Secretarj^ stated that the reason why the Society did not do 

 what was hoped for in this direction was that at that time the 

 financial situation would not admit of it. 



Mrs. E. M. Gill thought mothers lacked energy in training their 

 children to work, and were to blame for not giving them more sen- 

 sible ideas of life and its duties. They lack the love and the will 

 for work. She has two daughters who are now teachers but when 

 at home they do the house work. She became a member of the 

 Society in 1865, and has been absent hardl}' a Saturday since that 

 time, and has had her share of the prizes. She enjoys her horti- 

 cultural work and the money it brings. She can go to ride with 

 her own horse, and feed him, and wash the carriage. She did not 

 think many men, if tlie}' employed women in their greenhouses, 

 would insisi on their working until midnight. 



C. M. Hovey said the object advocated in the essay is one which 

 the Societ}' ought to do all it can to promote, though perlrips it 

 will be difKcult for it to do anything directly. He had himself 

 done much for this object indirectly, contributing to the exhibitions 

 of the Society in its early days more than now when the prizes are 

 large. lie remarked on the small number of young men to be 

 seen at our meetings, and hoped to see more of them. After all 

 that has been said we come back to the simple fact that girls do 

 not like to work in the garden anymore than they do in the house. 

 He feared that false ideas of respectability wt)uld long interfere 

 witii making garden work popular with women. In Philadelphia 

 women are employed in greenhouses much moie than here. While 

 in France he visited a florist friend, and after dinner a man brought 

 in a i)an of plants and thev sat conversing for two hours, the lady 



