HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR WOMEN. 109 



of the house being all the time engaged in pricking out these little 

 plants. There is a good deal of hard woik in out-door garden- 

 ing ; and our climate is rather severe for women to endure labor 

 out-doors ; it is very hot in summer and very cold in winter, 

 and one must be rugged to thrive working out-doors in it. 

 Many of the hands employed in a garden, whether men or 

 women, must be discharged in autumn. He had found it hard to 

 get girls to pick strawberries ; but he knew one lady, now the 

 wife of a wealthy gentleman, who received the first money she 

 ever earned for picking strawberries. We must begin at the 

 bottom and try to make labor respectable. If we can in some 

 way raise the dignity and respectability of labor it will be a great 

 point gained.' He had found that when his children went to school 

 they had as much as they could do without engaging in horticulture. 



Miss Smith asked whether garden work is harder than playing 

 lawn tennis. 



Mr. Hove}- replied that spading is a good deal harder. It is not 

 pleasant for either men or women to go out to the greenhouses at 

 midnight with the snow three feet deep, the mercury at twenty 

 degrees below zero, and the wind blowing a blizzard, to see that 

 the furnace fires are all right. There is some light work in gar- 

 dening, but much hard work. 



Mrs. Wolcott said she had taken care of a greenhouse and 

 raised grapes and sold them, and the work was not to be compared 

 for difficulty to the burdensome work all day in a cellar kitchen. 



John B. Moore said that he belonged to the class of farmers, 

 and was thankful that he did. The wives of wealthy men make 

 furnace fires more than farmers' wives. In Concord, where he 

 lives, a farm without a flower garden is an exception, and the 

 women take care of the flowers. The statements which had been 

 made concerning the hard lot of farmers' daughters touched him 

 in a tender place ; their lot is not as hard as it has been painted. 



President Walcott said it must be remembered that Concord had 

 long had the benefit of a horticultural institution in the person of 

 Mr. IMoore. 



The announcement for the next Saturday was a paper on " Or- 

 namental Climbing Plants, and How to Use Them," by John G. 

 Barker, Superintendent of Forest Hills Cemetery. 



