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?"