A New Industry for Ladies.
By Miss Grace Harriman.
HE object of this New Industry is to open up a new, profitable, and, I hope, pleasant way out of the present congested state of the Lady Labour Market. The Ladies' Fruit and Salad Gardens have been established at Grange Gardens, Sawley, near Derby, to provide pleasant homes and remunerative employment for gentlewomen who have a taste for gardening work and wish to add to their incomes or to earn a living.
It seems to have been seven or eight years since the idea first came to me that ladies with a taste for gardening might possibly earn a living by it; but so much needed thinking out, and detail after detail fitting in, that it is only five years since I myself became a practical gardener.
The more I inquired into the matter the more plainly I saw that market gardeners, as a rule, made a good thing of it. After trying two rented gardens that only proved quicksands, as far as money-spending on them went, the soil being worn out, and the fruit trees that were in them most uncertain, I determined to take new ground in hand, i.e., break up old pasture and plant a garden after my own idea of obtaining the greatest amount of produce with the least amount of labour. I advocate planting dwarf hardy fruit-trees in the open; and for this reason, that during nine months of the year they need no labour expending on them after they are once well planted and securely fenced from rabbits, their winter depredators, and with reason we may look for a good crop of fruit five years out of seven.
Miss Grace Harriman.
My own experimental garden was planted, March, 1889. That year we had enormous crops of vegetables of splendid flavour, and a very fair amount of fruit. Last year our crop of fruit, in addition to the vegetables, was very considerable. Had the produce of this garden been for sale, it must have realised a very handsome sum.
To my mind it would be unwise for a woman single-handed to expect to make a sure, comfortable living out of one isolated garden, but by well-directed co-operation, thereby being able to grow a great variety of fruits and vegetables and salads to meet the wants of a private trade, the chance of the possibility of failure is reduced to a minimum.
It is not desirable for more than six owners of gardens to live in one house. When fruit, salads, and vegetables are grown by the acre, and sold by the dozen, the bunch, or the pound, the bookkeeping necessary must be very considerable. These six ladies can well look after the three-acre garden, or, rather, fruit plantation. Each lady has her own portion of half an acre solely under her care, and she keeps a strict account of everything sold off her portion; and, after all necessary expenses are paid, the profits are divided exclusively among the lady cultivators in proportion as each may, by diligence and constant atten-
