Tenth Annual Meeting 69 



very best things is liable to be the one who has no adapt- 

 ability for the sale of those things. I was a victim, for a 

 while, of the delusion that because I was able to grow a high 

 product, I could sell it; but I very soon learned that I had 

 not the ability to sell, and I would like to see that differ- 

 entiation in horticulture which would lead to a condition of 

 affairs that would enable the grower to give his entire time 

 and thought and skill to the growing of the very best prod- 

 ucts, and that the man with exceptional ability as a salesman 

 should take these products from his hands and put them upon 

 the market. The grower who has a taste for growing the 

 best things would be so greatly relieved that he could afford 

 to sell his products at a very much smaller margin and lose 

 thereby a great deal of worry. 



Women have come into horticulture to stay. There are 

 certain branches of horticulture they are peculiarly adapted to. 

 A bright young woman of my acquaintance started three or 

 four years ago to grow a few violets in a coldframe. In a 

 little time she tried the hotbed, then she made a little green- 

 house heated with a stove. From this beginning she grew a 

 first -class product. I do not hesitate the prediction that 

 before many years she will have the finest violet house to be 

 secured and will be at the head of a large business, making 

 it a great success. There is no use in our finding fault with 

 this condition of affairs or trying to change the trend of 

 things. There are certain operations in horticulture to which 

 women are peculiarly adapted, and they will not only come to 

 the front, but their success will command for them a place 

 in the occupation, and the business will be improved in many 

 ways as the result of this development. 



In all this business of horticulture, the hired man is to be 

 reckoned with. The farmers are everywhere in our state com- 

 plaining that they cannot get help. In truth, in almost all of 

 the rural occupations the cry is, "We cannot get help. As 

 soon as a man becomes valuable he leaves us and goes into 

 business for himself." I have only one suggestion to make in 

 connection with the hired man and the hired girl, and that is, 

 that they be treated with the respect they deserve when they 

 perform their duties acceptably, and if we wish to continue 



