314 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



seventy. Of those who complete their training, about eighty 

 per cent, keep up their gardening, and of these about forty 

 become private or jobbing gardeners, about ten take to 

 market-gardening, about ten become teachers or lecturers, 

 and about twenty garden in their own homes, or otherwise 

 lead open-air lives. ^ Other teaching centres have since been 

 opened, and the number of women who take up gardening as 

 a profession is on the increase. The movement is not confined 

 to this country, but there are women's horticultural colleges 

 both in Europe and America.^ The very idea of a lady being 

 employed as a head-gardener, with men and boys working under 

 her, was so astonishing that the suggestion naturally met 

 with much opposition, but the able way in which ladies have 

 discharged the multitudinous duties of such a position is 

 already disarming criticism. 



Another new departure has been the introduction of " Nature 

 Study " into the school curriculum. Children of the poor and 

 rich alike are taught to understand some of the elementary 

 facts connected with plant life, and not unfrequently to the 

 theoretical is added a practical lesson in a garden attached to 

 the school. The movement began with the idea that if a more 

 intelligent appreciation of Nature was impressed on country 

 children, they might be less reluctant to quit the rural districts 

 and crowd into the towns. It is now being worked inversely 

 also. Town children are taught about the country, and even 

 in such populous districts as Stepney or Ratcliffe Highway 

 small children dig their plots of ground and plant and water 

 and weed under the auspices of the Borough Council. All this 

 tends to diffuse the love of flowers and gardening. The interest 

 that has been awakened through the beauty of the parks is also 

 far-reaching. Shows of chrysanthemums, a smoke-resisting 

 flower, and widely cultivated in the poorer districts of towois, 

 are arranged in many of the London parks, Victoria, Finsbury, 



1 In 1908, 10 Swanley students obtained posts as teachers or lecturers 

 or were put in charge of school gardens ; 12 became head-gardeners ; 

 10 singlehanded or under-gardeners ; 3 market-gardeners ; 7 companion- 

 gardeners or for temporary or jobbing work ; 2 were working in 

 their own gardens. 



2 See the book on the subject by the Hon. Frances Wolseley, 1908. 



