Mrs. Low asks me to draw attention to the fact that the work of “landscape design” is the most important in her school. Garden and greenhouse work are secondary to this. She tells me that several of her former students have become supervisors of school gardens, in connection with the Public Schools or Village Improvement Societies. The highest salary is $60 per month, for five months. One former student has gone to Portland, in Oregon, on the Pacific coast, where she is told she will soon become established as a landscape gardener. Several women have already made a success of landscape gardening. Ten years hence they will be heard of all over the country. At present the largest income is £800, or $4,000.
The two photographs of Lowthorpe are attractive. Three years ago the site of the present avenue, leading to the house, was a field. The students surveyed the avenue under instruction, and then did the planting. They have to learn to read a surveyor’s plan with ease. In the oval in front of the door are Rhododendron maximum, which is hardy in Massachusetts, ferns and Rinus Strabus. At the entrance on the right are viburnums, cornus, lonicera, roses, etc. The picture of the southern entrance gives the bulb garden, between the greenhouse and verandah, where later on bloom lilies, lilacs and magnolias. On the left is a hedge of white rose rugosa. Through the arch one goes into the garden. The large tree is a “platanus occidentalis.” The place was an old farm when Mrs. Low bought it in 1900–1, and we can judge by the well-kept grounds what a success she has made of it.
PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF HORTICULTURE FOR WOMEN
The plan of the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women has originated in the desire to offer to women an opportunity to fit themselves for an occupation at once healthful, pleasant, profitable, peculiarly fitted to their gifts, and in which they have ever taken an intelligent interest and active part.
Our purpose is to offer to these earnest-minded women a training in the principles and practice of horticulture and allied subjects, knowing that really skilled labour can always find a market, helping them also to find employment in the work for which they have been thus prepared.
To this end we expect to open in the near future the “Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women.” A small farm of twenty to forty acres will be obtained (probably rented), having upon it a comfortable dwelling with accommodation for about ten students (at first). Flower and kitchen gardens and orchards will be laid out and planted. Teachers of skill and experience will lecture upon the principles and practice of the courses of study offered, and will oversee all practice work done by students. For the very heavy work a labourer will be employed, but the students will do all the rest themselves under direct supervision of the teacher. A competent matron or principal will be in charge of the household and will have general oversight of the students.
The full course will occupy two years of twelve months each, but arrangements will be made for suitable holidays, and full students will be advised to live in the house. Short courses on special subjects will also be arranged, and it is hoped will prove attractive and useful to some who may want to specialise along certain lines.
The tuition and board fees will be kept down to as low a figure as possible, and it is hoped that there will be endowed scholarships.
The subjects to be offered at once are:—
Flower and kitchen gardening, care of lawns and shrubbery, orchards, poultry raising, bee-keeping, garden carpentry, marketing of produce.