Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women - Wise Acres Yearbook (Ambler, PA)

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Visit to the Farm Journal Building. Miss Jessie T. Morgan, the Director, and studeuts were delightfully entertained by Wilmer Atkinson at the Farm Journal Building. After taking them over the building and showing them the wonderful up-to-date improvements, he took them to the beautiful dining room on the top floor, where luncheon was served. Mr. Atkinson is on the advisory board of the School and is frequently consulted regarding matters of importance. “New Jobs for New Women” is the title of an interesting article in Everybody’s for March, in which the writer says: “In one of the large New York Bureau’s for Trained Women they are carefully answering hundreds of questions as to whether Germany or the United States has the better schools for market-gardening and fruit growing; also if an expert in Oriental rugs might establish herself in business and whether there might be a chance for a domestic-science teacher in the far East. Though salaried positions are few, agriculture, gardening and bee raising and intensive farming offer fine opportunities to the women with a little capital and much business ability.” We have just received Volumes V, VI and VII of the Reports of the Thirteenth Decennial Census relating to Agriculture. These books contain a summary of the statistics by subjects, with a general analysis, data regarding each, being presented by geographical division and States. It takes up the subject of agriculture in each State, giving size of farms, individual crops, number of domestic animals, poultry: and bees, expenditure for labor, fertilizers, value of crops, etc. The three volumes will be of great value to the farmer. Bees. In all our broad and beautiful land, one is amazed to find that bee culture is on the decline, only four tarms out of every hundred reporting apiaries in the United States. In our own State the number of farms with bees has decreased 23 per cent. This seems such an important industry, as there is always a demand for good wax and honey. “No one need be afraid of bees, as the Italian bees are as amiable as kittens. The Queen, given a brand-new house and a brand-new door, with a preliminary skirmish, enters, her workers following, dragging their stings behind them. It is most interesting to watch the nurses offering honey-drops to the big bee-babies on the tips of their little red tongues. Bee keeping is a most interesting and lucrative business,” so says The Spectator in one of A. I. Root s pamphlets, and so say we all of us, for last year from a few small hives we gathered 400 pounds of strained honey which we sold for thirty cents a pound, besides the wax which we used on hundreds of grafts; in addition, the wonderful increase in our orchard was largely due to the work of our honey-bees in the fertilization of the fruit blooms. The burden of suffering seems a mill-stone hung about our necks, while in reality, it is only the weight which is necessary to keep down the diver while lie is hunting for pearls.—Richter.

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our faces and hands and ankles, yanked our hair, lost our temper a dozen times, but finally triumphed. They were beauties and we tucked two in each sack and started homeward. It is hard enough to cross a salt marsh under any circumstances, but if you want a really exasperating occupation let me recommend trying to hop from tussock to tussock of this same marsh, and at the same time drag two holly bushes after you. We were wet to our knees, dead tired and absolutely speechless when we found our boat. The sun had dropped, the air had grown damp and chilly, by the time we had rowed across the bay and got where our old fisherman could cheer us up. He escorted us to the station and waved us a good-by, shaking his head over the follies of city folk. We did cheer up a bit in the train, and by the time we reached civilization we had persuaded ourselves that it had been good fun after all, and we even saw elements of humor in the picture we must have made as we alighted in the station, scratched, disheveled and dirty, loaded with holly—still carrying the spades. Our holly bushes are thriving, but perhaps you will agree with me that it is easier to let the nurseryman do the digging. F. V. G. The Talc of tke Dog. No one knows where he came from, this dog, but he arrived one morning in time to greet us all at the breakfast table. A happy-looking little fellow that did not have the least air of a watch dog. He evidently had come to stay, at least so says one with much authority, and it depends on all of us whether he is useful or simply ornamental. When lie blinks happily at us from the centre of the dining table, we cannot hold a grudge against him. Yes, it is a queer place for a dog, but you see this is not an ordinary dog, he is a little white metal one, attached to a suspicious-looking barrel-like arrangement with a slit in the top. We have been threatened with something of the sort for a long time; at least the tardy ones had. So when the subject of piano came up and we all thought we needed one, The Lady in Authority commanded that all who straggled in late for meals (a pernicious habit) should pay one cent a minute after the tinkle of the little bell. Would it be polite to tell who paid the first fine, or loyal to say that those brand new horticultural clocks by all the whistles are five minutes fast 1 The little dog looks serenely on, faithfully guarding his increasing load and the piano seems almost a reality. S. A. D. Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mould and chisel and complete a character.—Goethe.

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The Students at work m Greenhouse