nder at our turning it into a strawberry-patch. It would be a novelty
for women to undertake; and, alas! while even vicious novelties are
tolerated in men, those most innocent are frowned upon when indulged in
by women. But we cared not for what others might say or think. My
assurance of success was so strong that it overbore every other
consideration. Besides, I was strengthened by the encouragement of every
member of our little family.

I am not about to write an apology for women's undertaking even a large
horticultural establishment. Of ordinary rough farming I will not speak,
as that is confessedly beyond the domain of female strength. But there
are individuals of the sex who have large flower-gardens, even
fruit-gardens, in which everything is made to bloom and bear
luxuriantly. They neither dig nor hoe, but they frequently plant and
train and trim, overseeing and directing where and when the spade, the
hoe, and the watering-pot shall be applied. Their cultivated taste gives
symmetry and grace to borders, trellises, and walks,--decking the first
with floral gorgeousness, hanging the second with festoons whose
perfumes load the atmosphere, and lining the third with edgings that
wear an ever-flashing greenness even under the frigid temperature of a
wintry sky. It is not by their own hands that these marvels are wrought.
It is of their passionate fondness for tree and fruit and flower that
such humanizing results are born. They spring from the mind, the heart,
the understanding, not from the manual labor of their fair authors. Too
few of my sex have sufficiently informed themselves of these simple
affairs of the garden: their inheritance has been the needle only. But
it was nothing of this ornate description that I was about to undertake.
I was to have neither arbor nor trellis,--no sweet-scented honeysuckle
clustering over an elaborate framework,--no parterre of beautiful
flowers, glorious to behold, but producing no profit,--not even marigold
or lady's-slipper. There was to be no fancy-work, but everything was to
be practical. I was now in search of profit, trusting that the future
would enable me to indulge in the ornamental.

The first thing was to procure the strawberry-plants. I knew of none who
had them but the Tetchy family, and they guarded all their doings so
closely that I half despaired of obtaining any from them. Why they did
so we could not exactly tell, but our conclusion was that they must be
unwilli