GARDENING.
This has long seemed to me an employment in which women would not only gain health and strength, but in which the most modest and retiring might find a congenial occupation, and the products of which are never depreciated because raised by a woman. A peck of peas has a certain market value, not dependant upon the hands which raised them. A woman who works at making pants receives fifty cents a day, not on account of the amount or quality of her work, but be cause she is a woman. A man engaged upon the same garments receives two dollars a day, not because of the amount or quality of his work, but because he is a man.
It is doubtless true that, in very many cases, the man does his work better than the woman; but it is not less true that, in a majority of cases, the difference in price grows out of the difference in sex.
So of the school. A male teacher receives a thousand dollars a year, not because his moral influence is better, not because the pupils learn more, but because he is a man. A woman teaches a similar school, and receives four hundred dollars, not because of the inferiority of her moral influence in the school, not because the pupils learn less, but because she is a woman.
Now, happily, all this is avoided in gardening. A man who would sell a beet is not obliged to put on a label, "raised by a man, ten cents," and upon another, "raised by a woman, four cents," but the article brings its market value. This is a great advantage, and one affording a special gratification to women of spirit.
Besides, gardening is an occupation requiring very little capital, and, except in the fancy departments, comparatively little training. Near any of the cities a woman can earn more upon a half acre of land, with four months' work, than she can earn by sewing twelve months, saying nothing of the healthfulness of gardening, and the unhealthfulness of sewing. A young woman, tired, disgusted with the difficulties which hamper her on every side, asks:—
"What can I do to be saved?"
I reply, "Cultivate a half acre of ground."
You can sell the products of your garden to one of the market-men who make it their business to purchase garden vegetables where they are raised, and convey them to market. Nearly all of our men gardeners sell at their doors, and have nothing to do with the market.
I do not know of another opening which women can enter so easily, with so little wounding of their sensibilities, and which promises such sure and generous remuneration.
A year ago I urged some young women who were out of employment to engage in gardening. They said they had no capital, no experience, but would be willing to try if the way could be made smooth for them. I spent a couple of days in driving about among the gardeners, in the neighborhood of Boston, and asked the following questions of some fifty of them:—
"Is there any part of your work that women can do?"
"If so, what compensation would you give to attentive, quick- fingered American girls?"
The answer to the first question was uniformly,—
"A large part of the work of a garden, or 'truck' farm, can be done as well by women as by men."
To the second question, the answers ranged from five to eight dollars per week.