CHAPTER X 



THE MEDICAL ASPECT OF GARDENING FOR 

 WOMEN 



Anxious parents often ask whether gardening is a 

 really healthy occupation for their daughters. 

 These doubts, shared by many, are perhaps not so 

 easily dispelled as, at the outset, might be supposed. 

 We are all prone to view with suspicion any pro- 

 ject which has for its purpose the fitting of women 

 for the more arduous tasks of life. " For men must 

 work and women must weep " is what we are 

 accustomed to hear. We know that amongst all 

 primitive peoples it has been found that women 

 are capable physically of carrying out hard work 

 in the open. We have evidence to prove that 

 crofter women, those engaged at coal-pit mouths, 

 women peasants in France and Germany, North 

 American Indians, African races and the aborigines 

 of Australia, are not less long-lived than their more 

 favoured sisters in leisured countries. Amongst 

 civilised races, however, the principle is upheld 

 that only light tasks are relegated to women, and 



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