GARDENING FOR WOMEN 83 



are allowed to excavate and trench ground. All 

 minor ailments, such as nasal catarrh, or " com- 

 mon cold," bronchitis, sore throat, headaches 

 and muscular rheumatism, are remediable by means 

 of a life regulated in accordance with the principle 

 of the " open window." It can hardly be doubted, 

 therefore, that if those exercises which take the 

 form of outdoor games are in part replaced by the 

 more primitive and infinitely more profitable ones 

 of gardening and botanical study, the same excellent 

 effects will be reaUsed. 



Those who advocate gardening for women do 

 not seek to deprive them of intellectual pursuits 

 through a constant devotion to physical effort. 

 They wish to secure to them the certain assurance 

 of a healthy physical state by moderate devotion 

 to a refined and pleasant occupation. Direct 

 experience is fortunately available to carry con- 

 viction on this point to those who consider it 

 with proper calmness and reasonableness. Healthy 

 women who have essayed the experiment of garden- 

 ing have no sort of doubt as to the beneficial 

 results to be derived from it. Again and again 

 it has been found, not only by devotees them- 

 selves, but by others whose training as medical 

 men and women has enabled them to detect any 

 undesirable results, that gardening is little short 

 of an unmixed blessing. One distinguished medical 



