TJie Cultivation of Small Fruits. 271 



be let out which has the last-mentioned blemish, and none should be 

 sold that do not very closely approach the circular four. One of the 

 prevailing faults in the so-called best flowers is the smallness of the centre 

 yellow or white, and the largeness of the eye, which breaks through it into 

 the border. We are so severe in these matters ourselves, that we count 

 the very best of them no bloom in summing up the good ones. 



Glen Ridge, October, 1867. E. S. R., ^un. 



THE CULTIVATION OF SMALL FRUITS AS AN EMPLOY- 

 MENT FOR WOMEN. 



" Wife, into thy garden, and set me a plot 

 With strawberry-roots of the best to be got." 



Tusser's September Husbandry. 



The author of " Needle and Garden," published in " The Atlantic " a 

 year or more since, and a late writer in " The Independent," have antici- 

 pated a good deal of what I wish to say ; but the subject is perhaps new 

 enough to most of the readers, fair or otherwise, of " The Journal of Hor- 

 ticulture," to justify my adding a few words on the feasibility of the culti- 

 vation of the " small fruits," as a partial or entire emplojmient and means 

 of support for women. 



Having entire faith in the ultimate civil and social emancipation of 

 woman, I recognize the fact that she will shortly succeed to many pursuits 

 and callings from which social prejudices and legal relics of barbarism 

 now exclude her, and will assume the performance of new duties as well 

 as long-denied rights. But, even if this were not so, it is certain that our 

 American women imperatively need more open-air labor, a wider range 

 of industrial pursuits, and employments where the remuneration will be in 

 a direct ratio to the ability and industry engaged, and not given on an 

 arbitrary distinction of sex. 



In the cultivation of small fruits, I think I see a desirable employment 

 for woman's labor, especially where the natural head of the family is 

 wanting. The unmarried or widowed woman and her dependent relatives 

 too often devote themselves to saving the scanty fortune of a deceased 



