HORTICULTURE AS A PROFESSION FOR YOUNG LADIES. (From The Queen )

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 109, 16 January 1873, Page 2

HORTICULTURE AS A PROFESSION FOR YOUNG LADIES. (From The Queen )

A vrrv ablo suggestion of a new profession for gentlemen was made by a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette a few days bincc. Referring to tlic want of technical knowledge among amateur lovers of horticulture and persons possessing small garden*, nnrl the great diflleulty of obtaining the services of an educated, well-informed gardener, lie suggests that hort iculture shall be raised to the rank of a profession. " A large portion of people having gardens cannot afford to keep a gardener, and would not have work for ene if they could. They are driven to the precarious assistance of men who, with the smallest possible knowledge, work at high wages by the day. Even those who have money enough and soil enough to ' keep a gardener' are f>rt unite if they can get one, at the ordinary wages of a curate, with any know lodge of his business There is a great want, among middle-class people in tho neighbourhood of London and other great cities and town", of an intelligent knowledge of horticulture. People would be willing enough to pay for this knowledge if they could only get it Our roses or our grapevines devclopc symptoms of disease, and we do not know how to arrest it. It is easy enough in the ' human | subject ' We send for the doctor. "We s*nd for n man who has made medicine or surgery (perhaps both) the study of his life, and he tells us what to do, and if necessary, ho does it. Now, why should we not know to whom to send in our horticultural dilemmas? Why should we not have our diplomatised horticulturists, to whom wo might c end to rescue our tiros and flowers from disease or death 9 Surely it is a pleasant er occupation to bud roaes or to prune fruit tree*, than to cut off hum in legs or arms, and to extirpate horrid cancers ? A thorough knowledge of botany and horticulture is not more difficult to attain, and 13 not less ennobling vrhen nltiim -tt, than an cqnnl knowledge of surgery and medicine. Why, then, should these, pursuits not be erected into a ' gentlemanly profession *' '* Why not, indeed ? and wlu not also, I b'g leave to add into a ladylike profession? I place the suggestion before the readers of The Queen, ns affording a new and perfectly legitimate opening for tho employment of women, and m a field in ninth number* of Indies already excel, more particularly as practical gardeners, en amateur, no doubt, but with a skill and taste which are not to be met with in men following the profession or business of gardeners except a fi'w of the very top of the profession Wh> should we not htne our female Pa\tons and Kenrs ' Mrs London, instructed no doubt by her talented husband, imbibed a great taste for and line of the art ; $ml other laches might find in horticulture a profession which would be remunerative, and could not detract in itscU'in any way from their social status as gentlewomen Lo.iving the living out of Inn Wapo gardens and parks to the gentlemen, there h «*tifl, in oilier branches of gardening, a wide field open, in winch ladies thoroughly educated in tl>o science of hoi ticu't no and botany might find employment, and m which their less fortunate sisters, with ordinary strength and less preliminary training might work. T remember a short time since, reading an account of a college or school of horticulture for women in America, and it has long bcon a matter of astonishment to me that, in the present dearth of remunerative employment for women of the middle clax*. no one has yet thought of making them *' gardeners." •flic idea was suggested many years ago, in my hearing, by a well-known literary gentleman, and was called forth by the universal — and it now appears never-ending — complaints of the- want of knowledge- and, I am sorry to add, predatory linbita the numerous jobbing gardeners my mother had had in her cmplojinenf. I remonibei* th.it one of my sisters and m>«clf, in utter despair of getting any good work or good remit m the way of flowers for effect or fruit for eating, from the uoaolnnan gardener and his numerous myrmidons of gardoncrs by tho day, took upon ourselves the entire superintendence of the greenhouse and outdoor garden The former wim a very largo one. Hie latter a good-sized but suburban piece of ground We only stipulated for tho ' ner\ices of the man to leinove large pots, dig the ground I (where \er\ heavy), and wn«h the greenhouse ; ho was to be ! entire,* under our orders. We went to work with cnthu- ' siasm, detcrmmtd to succeed, and aa u matter of course we did stieeml beyond our hopes.

Of course, if there are women (but I am loth to believe it) 9Q foolish as to be afraid of soiling their hands or complexion by being much out in the open air, I do not addresT'-them. Hy suggestions are meant fur those who look upon tbe duties of life aerioutty aud "trbo, being compelled by circumstances to own their daily subsistence, would find in hortioulturo not only a remunerative but delightful occupation ; and i^tho Pull Mall eorefpoudpot be correct m hit riews, it wowd pay. He sayit " Ojj^oursc the question may surest itself, will it pay? I aitt|buito disposed to think it would. I, for m}' part, and I harpfheard others toy the same would often be glad to pay my guinea for a visit from a skilled horticulturist." If tlie want of scientific knowledge among working gardeners is. as. great as this implies, women by taking up tho profession, could do no injury to the other sex ; the-y could oust no one from his place, and would simply step into a void, filling up tho gaps between theshining lights of horticulture and botany and the ignorant, obstinate, jobbing gardener, who very often takes the imnm of one without any knowledge of the duties, but a great idea of the perquisites of the situation.