The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1891-05-24
THEIDEAL WORK FOR WOMEN
Graceful Forms and Good Compilations
Easily Obtained in Cultiyating Plants.
While 1t Is Not Exactly a Pastime, 1t Can Be
Made a Pleasurable Occupation and Prof
liable as Well Corsets Are Barred.

1t is hard to tear ones self from the
young plants in the garden. the young car
nations which show now colors in tempt.
ing richness, the tender mimulus. the lemon
verbenas, which make the very earth at
their roots fragrant, and b dark rosemary,
whose leaves are scented with remem-
brance. Everything calls to outdoor life
and yet it is pleasant to turn from the May
cold when the east wind comes up and
read such pleasant letters az unknown
women write.
One which has interested me more than
any comes from q city teacher, who desires
to change her vocation for healthier work
in the open air. She is anxious to learn
gardening to support herself. but laments
that she has never been able to find any
family in the country that would receive
and teach her how to raise flowers and
fruit. The letter is lost, but It's gist is well
remembered.
1t is not quite the only application of the
kind ever received, but the women who
wish to learn gardening are usually driven
into it by circumstances, and it Is rare that
one is sensible enough to take it up of her
own accord. Here and there a widow left
with an orchard and garden ready-made to
her and manages to make a living from
them, but most of the successes which read
SO ~charmingly in domestic stories are
evolved solely from the writer's inner con-
seriousness.
On taking up a book on women's work
lately, which professed to draw all Its ex-
amples from fact. | was very much sur
prised to find an ideal sketch of my. own,
taken from q popular magazine without
leave or credit, paraded as q woman's YER
liable experience.
1T is o EASY WORK.
Gardening is hardly easy or light work
for anybody. 1t is not solely picturesque
training of vines or gathering painted fruit.
1t means getting up ut 4 or 5 o. mornings,
to pick green worms off the salad plants,
or burn the webs off apple trees. going
over lots from end TO end with q daisy
cutter. clipping the dandelions before they
run to seed and SOW destruction for acres.
1t means getting up in the middle of the
night to see that the sash is not blown OF
the hotbeds and keeping mp fires cold
nights when the mercury dips below freez-
ing about midnight. 1t means ten to twelve
hours good work each day in the growing
season and steady care and fOrethought the
rest of the year. 1t will not do for the gar
dener to mind sun or shower, damp OF chill.
As for the encouragement q woman finds
ia ~ Jan y oAA8n
that is gone by. The small market garden
ers and greenhouse men do not welcome
competitors of either sex. Some of the
~sourest. smallest jealOusies ever met are
found among small florists.
A woman's garden is always the last to
get plowed, because men think it isn't
worth while to consider her. Laborers who
work by the day or month will do little
enough for men employers, but when it
comes to workengf for a woman / know could
do as much myself any day when well as the
lazy Jakes pretend to do for me, though
they are always ready to charge the high
est wages for the favor of working for g
woman at all. All the ENCOURAGEMENT /
get from q farmer editor of experience is
that q woman can't do anything with a
garden. She can't. weighted with the shift
less, Indifferent, usual sort OF workers,
with i'll health herself. and interference
and upsettlng of all her plans where she
should expect help, which is the experience
of most women stepping into open fields OF
labor. Neither ones ~neighbOrs nor ones
friends are apt to prove encouraging to
What thenf Give upf Never: nor yet
set your teeth nor clInch your hands as
demonstrative little women do, and end
there. But quietly in the depths of your
mind clinch resolution to succeed or die in
making it unpleasant for whoever gets in
the way of your success. Gardening is too
sweet. brave and life-giving a pursuit not
to be taken mp by women. Only the best
6OrG VI WOIuduuOOQ nus tu0 Will 6uO OIL
thusiasm to work through it. and no call
ing has richer rewards. What Is it to work
from 4 In the morning 10 8 at night In plant
ing-tlme when one feels 1.-the as q hickory
bough and drops to sleep to wake
in the flush of dawn as If new createdf
All day long living poetry Is about one.
To live and work among Towering boughs
or fruited ones, fed by fragrance of vine
and %aromatics. with Virgil, TheOcrltus and
Tennyson running in ones head while one
plants, prunes and dibbles. every day to be
greeted by some new. lovely fruit or bios
som is q life worth living. You can work
either as clowns do, reluctantly, or as poets
do, for love of labor. Very sOOn the work
l have worked In. spring rain all the fore
noon, setting ont raspberries and sweet
brier from the woods, without catching q
sneeze of cold. and wrought from dawn till
dark over plants for sheer delight in the
labor with far less fatigue than six hours
desk work costa. Any woman who has to
earn her bread cannot do SO in q sweeter
way than gardening, and every one who 10
not afraid of work, and Is willing to learn
1t, ought to be encouraged by every means.
The only way TO learn quickly and COM
pletely is to enter some gardening family
and give ones time for q year or two for
the sake of learning. 1t lie not o craft that
can be picked up as one goes. A novice. to
whom the names of most plants are strang-
ers. will be very we'll paid by receiving
board, instruction and practice for the
first two years.
WORK WITH A AMI ri
English women of the better class are
much less afraid of real work in gardens
than our finical American ladies. Even q
village woman here feels it beneath her
dignity to dig a fiower-b0rder with q fork
or spade. 1t she does not fancy it ungen-
teel, she has been taught that tits injurious
| to her health. 1 have questioned physicians
about this and the reply has invariably
been that If q woman wants to strengthen
herself SO as to be free from the ordinary
ailments of her sex. she can do nothing bet
row to real effect. Beginning with what
her strength will bear, she will find strength
and s~uppleness increase surprisingly
and delightfully."- working in the open air
and using tools which call out exertion.
| Gardening is vastly better for physical de-
velopment than indoor gymnastics. because
1. calls muscles into such varied play.
Old farmers grow stiff-jOinted and bent
not by work but by the utter neglect Of n.y.
The high riding boot with thin cork sole is
the proper shoe for the gardener. and loose
flannel trowsers held by elastic around the
waist and falling below the knee protect
from chilliness aud from insects.
There is no particular need of q woman
dressing like q scarecrow to rake her flower
borders, but il Is far less appropriate for
her to go to work in the trim ruffies and
fancy hat which she would wear for q stroll
on the street. She does not a to get
herself up as q garden ornament to 60 with
the cast iron seats, terra Gotta urns and fill.
gree trellises.
Something like q flannel mountain suit,