New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-04-09
1PRH HININ.
vantage.

APRIL HINTS.
In town there are as yet but few signs OF
the departure of Winter. The pale, airy
chintZes and thin muslinS in the shOp-wlndows
look chilly and lugubrious under the dull
drizzle of rain or driving tides of dust. But
a davis Journey away from the streets sends
the adventurer back babbling of green fields
and gentle Spring. TO be sure, 1t IS only the
early wheat that is green, and Spring, Ike
most gentle people, has an obstinate tweaklng
temper of her own under her mildness, which
is apt to send sharp, peevish gusts about
your ears just as you surrender yourself to
her embraces. The poets we suspect, over
loaded her with praises as one flatters guest
of uncertain temper, wishing to make the best
of bad bargain. But there can be no doubt
now that. whether in good or bad humor,
she has arrived at last. The hillsdes are
powed up yellow and crumbling ready for the
potato-planting; the buds are thrusting out
their red gummy caps from the maple boughs !;
yellow Pasch-fowcrs come out boldly III farm
house gardens among last years dead tomato
vines, and even along the bleak sea-coast
the arbutus begins to color under the brown
needles of the pines. The streets, too, aye
suddenly redolent of violets. AT every corner
we find masses of tea-rOses and carnations and
stately calla-Ilies, which the suburban green
houses have empticd into the warm town air
for sale.
So practical is the effect of city life that
the most forcble idea suggested to us
by these budding country shrubs or daintlly
bred roses is to cOllate them, as it were,
with the unemployed or half-paid women
who pass them by at morning or evening, and
who crowd and sicken and starye year after
wear in the towns, and to wonder why the one
could not in some tangible, real fashion be
made to aid the other. Two or three years
ago we urged upon women the broad field which
awaited themAin hori-Or horticulture, from
the smallest to the largest scale, and we have
reason to believe that in some instances our
advice was successfully followed. The neg
lect of all mention of this means of making a
livelihood by the leaders of all kinds of woman
reform is noticeable. We know of but one
attempt made by a woman to educate women
as hortcultursts. There are hundreds OF
women in New-York City with capital to in
vest, and often children to rear, who have no
other idea than that of going into trade and
pushing into the very heat and thickest OF the
struggling throng. Now there is no reason
why these women should not master the sci
ence of raising potatoes, peaches, or berries for
the New York market as easily as the SELL
ing of muslns or ribbons, or the manufac-
ture of bonnets. On the one hand there are
assure profits as the other, with the adyan-
tages OF pure air. cheap rents, certainty Of
materials for food, and healthful surrounding
influences of all kinds for herself and her
children The small number of women who
take up this occupation at will is the more
remarkable because it is the one which so
large q proportion of their sex are led into
invOluntarily. Very few intelligent New
England or Southern wives of farmers or
planters would be found unable to carry on
their husbands business successfully if Occa-
sion demanded. There is no reason why a
cultured refined woman should not make her
living and grow fair and fat at forty, out Of
doors, by raising corn or mules, as well as by
teaching algebra, or writing bad poems for
the magazines, and making an lmpotent con-
clusion of herself at last by means Of
neuralgia.
Near any of the large cities there is no
surer profit in any kind of business than that
of flower raising-a trade which can be begun
with the least capital, and in which the large
dealers never can GUST the small ones. If there
are scores of women who have capital to start a
greenhouse, nursery, or truck-farm, there are
thousands who could be employed thereon with
every chance of efficiency and success. There
is but small fraction of the work too heavy
for feminine fingers. Hoeing, wedding, bud
dino or praftinp none of the attention which
flowers require could tax physical strength
SO much as ordinary mill work. One is car
RED on in the most sitting Of atmospheres,
the other under the clearisky and sun. While
the stalwart statesmen in our monster dry
goods houses find out that their work belongs
of right to women, we may hope that women
will have sense and acuteness to take posses
sion of this other more lucrative chance wait
ing for them out of doors.