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

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YVolseley. It is conducted on a smaller scale and with rather different methods, but aims at giving gentlewomen, at a moderate rate, a practical training. At Thatchani is a scnool of gardening where a specialty is made of Frenc.i gardening methods. Hotbeds, cloches and intensive cultivation are the special points, and 28 students are active all the time on five acres of ground. In all these schools, as well as those elsewhere in Europe, a minimum of lecture work and a maximum of pracical work is the rule, the ratio being about two hours of lectures to six hours in the garden. They aim to be especially training schools of especial practical value. Both Swanley and Studley attract students from abroad, Germans, Bus sians, Swiss, a few Americans, and even a Japanese having found their way there. The fees average from $430 up. In both Germany and England, there are several schools presided over and taught by graduates of the large colleges, and often trained women with their own commercial undertakings will take pupils and apprentices to train as gardeners. In Germany there are at least three important schools of gardening for women. Marienfelde, near Berlin, was founded in 1894 by Fraulein Dr. Castner Over 50 women from German), Austria, Russia, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Roumania, Norway and even from America are in attendance, and this school has become a pioneer and leader in the work of horticultural education for women in Germany. Frauenschule Maidburg, situated close to Kempen in Posen was opened in 1904 by Der Verein fur wirtschaftliche Frauenschule auf dem Lande. It is designed primarily for educated women, and the courses include beside gardening, dairying, domestic economy, etc. Godesberg on the Rhine has a school of gardening of which one of the coprincipals is an English woman from one of the English colleges. Here on a small estate 50 students are taught practical gardening and fruit growing, all the work being done by the students and their teachers, for no men gardeners are employed—only a couple of laborers for the heavy work. The lectures on horticulture are given by those members of the staff who take the same subjects in practical gardening, and for pure theory visiting lecturers from Godesberg or Bonn come in. In Russia, as long ago as 1889, Baroness Budberg established an agricultural school for women on her husband’s estate at Ponicruove in Courtland. As well as horticulture, this school i Produced teaching in dairying, domestic economy, etc., and many women have passed through it. The example of the founder stimulated other women of rank to similar efforts in Poland (18941 and in Bavaria (1895) where graduates of her school have been engaged to start institutions of the same kind Tn Hungary. Austria and Spain the movement has been taken up, in spite of conservative resistance. At Niguarda. near Milan. Ttalv, Miss Aurelie Josz opened a school of horti-

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den Club of America’’; Prof. F. Warner, State College, Pa., subject: “Broilers for Profit”; Miss Elsie McFate, Turtle Creek, Pa., subject: “Hardy Flower Culture ; Mr. Bertrand H. Farr, Wyomissing. Pa., subject: “Raising Rainbows. All who beard the program were most hearty in their praise land everyone felt the future of the association was assured. The Woman's National Agricultural and Horticultural Association was formed in New York in December, 1913, and at a later meeting in Philadelphia officers were elected and the association became a reality. No call for members was sent out until March of this year, and )to date nearly five hundred members are enrolled from all over the United States. New names are being added daily and before the next meeting it should reach a thousand. Everywhere the idea of a national organization to rouse an interest in agriculture and horticulture among women is hailed with the greatest enthusiasm and all who attended the conference felt the progressive spirit manifest at the meeting. SOME SCHOOLS OF GARDENING ABROAD Of late years there has arisen, both at home and abroad, an especial interest in the training of women in horticultural pursuits, and many women are turning to these as a means of livelihood or as a matter of interest. As in many other educational departments, England and Germany have been aniong the pioneers in founding schools of practical horticulture women. Swanley College, in Kent, England, has the distinction of being the oldest school of this kind, for it was founded in 1889. Its purpose is to provide for women a sound training in gardening and allied subjects. The estate contains forty-three acres, divided into flo ver and kitchen gardens, orchards, wall fruit and meadow land, with glass and forcing houses. 'I'lie college accommodates sixty students, and it prepares them both for practical gardening in England, and for emigration and colonial life. The courses of study include all branches of horticultural science, and the school is always full. Over 50% of its graduates are self-supporting in some branch of horticulture. The school at Studley Castle, founded by Lady Warwick, was opened in 1898 as a hotel for women students in connection with the agricultural college at Reading. In 1903 the beautiful estate of Studley Castle, 350 acres in extent, fifteen miles from Birmingham, was purchased, and here the college has prospered exceedingly. Rose and flower gardens, a rock garden, an orangery, orchards and 400 feet of glass in a walled garden half a mile distant from the castle, offer every facility for practical training in horticulture. Fruit, melons and tomatoes are grown under glass and marketed at a profit. The Studley jams and bottled fruits are a popular specialty, and are exported even to the Far East. Another school was opened in 1901 at Glvnde, in Surrey, by Lady Frances

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culture for women in 1905. Gardening, poultry, bee keeping arc the main subjects. Switzerland has one or two schools of gardening, the one at Chateau la Chatelaine being presided over by an English lady. Belgium, Holland and Denmark are well supplied with agricultural schools, and “traveling courses’' are a feature of their method. Teachers go to certain towns and provinces and give on the spot their lectures and instruction to the farmers. Dairy work for women is made a specialty. The schools at Bouchout in Belgium, and Charlottenlund, in Denmark, have courses in gardening, fruit growing, etc., designed especially for women. The school of horticulture for women at Briccointe-Robert, in France, is one of the latest to join the ranks. It was founded in 1913, and is bound to be one oi the important schools of its kind—so practical as are the French. The graduates of these various schools are found today all over the world. Canada, South Africa, Teneriffe, British Columbia and the United States have all had their attractions, and women with this thorough training in this the oldest of the arts, are everywhere making good. J. b. haines. THE THINNING OF FRUIT Too often the orchardist wlio is careful in the pruning, spraying and cultivation of his trees thinks that he cannot spare time and money to thin the fruit. This is a serious mistake. No other orchard operation pays better. The profit of the crop depends to a large extent upon the proportion of number one fruit. When crops are very large, the best grade may be the only one to yield a profit, and in years of scarcity fine fruit brings fancy prices. In thinning, the blemished and infested fruits are removed, leaving only what is sound ; and if this should he too thick, it is thinned out until the individual fruits are not nearer to each other than t ie width of one’s hand. This reduces the amount of culls to a minimum. Nature’s purpose in bearing fruit is to produce seeds, and these cause a much greater proportional drain on the tree than does the rest of the fruit. A small apple usually has as many and as perfect seeds as a large one; and a bushel of large apples is much less exhausting to the parent tree than the same amount of small ones. In the case of peaches the difference is still greater, as it takes as much vitality to produce a stone as to form the flesh of several peaches. Thinning the fruit is a great help in conserving the strength of the tree for the following year. Such trees as the apple and pear, that hear their fruit on spurs, do not mature fruit on the same spur on two successive years. Bv removing all the fruit from some spurs early in the season, they will be likely to bear the next year. Careful experiments indicate that the statement that thinning overloaded trees does not reduce the yield for that year is overdrawn, in the case of apples, though the quality and value of the crop are increased. But probably in a series