GARDENING FOR WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1199, 7 August 1911, Page 9

GARDENING FOR WOMEN.

To those who have followed the wonderful advance of the,'woma:n gardening movement in England, France, and Canada, the fact fhat there is a possibility of tho Burnley School of Horticulture being reopened to women and girls will corne as the best of good news,-says an Australian writer. The enthusiasm with which gardening was taken up hero some years ago was gradually damped by the fact that tho needs of the woman students were deemed by authorities as of less importance than those of the men and boys; but the fact remains that the percentage of feminine trainees who turned the knowledge they gained at Burnley, to good practical and financial account is very considerable. What gardening means to the women of Great Britain may bo gathered frorii tho fact that there are over il,ooo engaged in agricultural/pursuits. There are fourteen lar«e colleges devoted to training workers m all branches; there is a large number of 1 landscape gardeners getting from two guineas a week cq two guineas a, day, and there are woman gardeners living in little cottages on - big estates getting XBO a year and. their keep. By far the largest number of trainees, however, havo'their own little gardens—market gardens 011 a small scale—and of these there are hundreds making enough to live on comfortably, if quietly. An expert who has recently seen a gcod deal of this gardening as a means of livelihood for women maintains that the average gardener lives one of the most normal and happy lives. She has to .work hard and keep early hours, but tho fact that she combines market gardening with poultry-keeping and bee-keeping helps to make her interests wide, while the fact that she is really a home worker adds in no small degree to her general prospects of contentment.