consideration of work and accomplishment that the farm may prove its 
full value. The house will be run by the women as a self-supporting unit. 
Another activity which the Illinois Committee will attempt is an 
arrangement for part time work for women. Available land will be 
cultivated as community gardens, the women to enlist on the same 
basis upon which they have worked for the Red Cross, pledging so 
many hours a week. Suitable instruction will be given and adequate 
supervision. A special effort will be made to train women to act as 
captains next year, and to superintend children's gardens, which are 
suffering now for a lack of competent supervision. Every com- 
munity will be urged to use its resources to the utmost, and although 
little may be accomplished this year, achievement next year will 
prove the value of thorough preparation. 
We who Uve in the western country, where farms are huge and 
labor frequently scarce, realize that these trained women will mean 
much patriotically and practically to the country's future work. These 
women, who this year give their time and energy that they may help in 
years to come, will learn a trade which will be one of increasing useful- 
ness. Whether they marry or not, they will have at their command a 
practical, remunerative, interesting career. Theirs will be a new and 
honorable profession, and to America, their country, they will offer the 
nucleus of a women's army to carry on the fight for increased food 
production. 
Horticultural and Arboricultural 
Reconstruction Work in France 
Dear Mrs. Martin: I am sending you a copy of the letter writ- 
ten, at your request, to Professor Charles S. Sargent of the Arnold 
Arboretum, and his reply. 
The German advance of the last few days would seem to show 
that, admirable as the local and temporary agricultural relief measures 
have been, they can only be considered as such, and that any per- 
manent reconstruction work must await more stable conditions. 
Yours sincerely, 
Beatrix Farrand. 
March i8, 1918. 
Professor Charles S. Sargent, 
Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, Mass. 
Dear Mr. Sargent: Mrs. Martin, President of the Garden Club of 
America, has asked me to write you on behalf of the Club for your 
advice with regard to what is in your opinion most needed in the way 
