GIRL GARDENERS IN LONDON.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 September 1917, Page 4

GIRL GARDENERS IN LONDON.

SOME “JOBBING ” EXPERIENCES. July 6 Girl gardeners “jobbing” in London! It sounds impossible, but we have done it, and we are still doing it, and. what is much more important, we are making it pay. Gardening is a jolly and a very healthful arid certainly a patriotic prolession for women, but the pay is generally very meagre. “ Living in ” you may get £25 a year—less than a competent cook. “Living out ” usually means a cottage and free vegetables and about a pound a week. Only the woman of many years’experience can hope to make her two or three pounds a week in gardening unless she does as we did and. goes out “jobbing ” hv tbe (lay, 'making her own terms.

We were told that it would be very difficult to work up a private connection in I/ondou, and we were advised to apply to a firm of nurserymen who supply their Londr 11 clients with “ jobbing " gardeners. We did so, and they offered 11s a weekly wage utterly impossible to live on, and ue finally decided that we would go out “ jobbing” bv the day, work eight hours daily, and demand a shilling an hour.

That may seem high wages to people used to paying 4s 6d a day to a male gardener, but remember we have both been to a first-rate gardening college, and we have two years’ experience behind us. We pointed out these things to employers who questioned ottr terms, and always added, “ Try us for a day, and if you don’t think it's worth it, well ’’ Awlays, however, they agreed we were worth it.

We worked five days a week, usually going to different houses, though in one large garden we worked together one day weekly. Four pounds a week is not wealth, perhaps, but it is quite a good sum for two girls living together, and we could always work on Saturdays if we wanted a little extra money. .By means of advertising and through introductions given to us by employment agencies, we had more offers to work than we could accept

.* « * 'L'lie work is most, interesting People are very willing to have the one-time flower-beds turned into a vegetable garden, and it is the care of vegetables that forms the greater part of our work. Even in London there are delightful gardens quite unknown to the casual wanderer, and we make journeys into the suburbs, too, to help on the great work of food production. TVe wear short-belted coats, breeches, puttees, and strong boots he only practical c ostume for girls who are doing serious work. The first time we so ventured out into the streets of London was rather aa