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

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(Extract from a letter from Mrs Peeler, Shanghai, China.) March 26, 1920. Last week was an eventful one. We had Dr. C. T. Wang and Mr. Szu and four Americans to a formal Chinese dinner. Dr. Wang is a marvel. He is the most popular, most hated, the most loved man in South China and cannot you see how the shivers of excitement ran down my spine when I saw peering through the butler’s pantry window a secret service man dressed au natural, but with a bludgeon under his coat? He follows Dr. Wang about, carries no firearms, but is a skilled boxer and jiu jitsu man. Well, to return to the Chinese dinner, which was the most thrilling. It was prepared by a Chinese caterer Mr. Fitch and I came downstairs at 7.16 to see if the table was all right, and what was our horror to see that a sheet, stiffly starched, was on the table. We got busy and had the thing whisked off and the bare table used, as being more ceremonious. No doilies or napkins are used. Chopsticks cf ivory were at each place (I whispered to my Boy to slip me a fork.) In front of each place was a silver dish containing roasted watermelon seeds and almonds. In the middle of the table a large dish of shrimps and green peas (imagine eating peas with chopsticks), and around this dishes of soy sauce, mustard and another sweet soy sauce, very good. Small plates of thinly sliced ham and bits of pork and dried fish were conveniently placed. Mr. Szu took his chopsticks and helped me to shrimp and peas, then himself, and proceeded to eat, and thereafter he took his chopsticks and helped me first from each new course. And if you felt a great longing for a special bit in the middle of the dish, it is very stylish to reach over and take it out and eat it and take another if you wish. Now to eat peas with chopsticks takes so much mental concentration of a high order, that conversation lagged for a time, because crises were always imminent. After this came duck skin sandwiches and stewed conch ; then four kinds of noodles deliciously boiled in beef broth with finely minced ham on top as a garnish. In front of our plate was placed a cup of delicate broth, flavored in some mysterious way; into this cup you put your noodles and eat as much as you can with chopsticks, then use a bowl-shaped, long-handled spoon, for as my Chinese friend said: “I never eat soup with chopsticks.’' This handsome and charming Chinese is a Harvard graduate. He was dressed like the Americans, while Dr. Wang wore Chinese clothes, a handsome long dress-like affair to his heels of brocade made alone and a short top coat of heavy stiff black satin with the usual long sleeves coming below the finger tips, to use as a muff when outdoors. Then came the chafing dish, which originated in China. It is called the Chrysanthemum Flower Pan. and heated with alcohol. The copper makes the flame blue, yellow and green. The host puts into this pan, which contains chicken broth, slices cf chicken breast, beef kidney, liver, mushrooms, render green pea vines, bamboo sprouts, spinach, water chestnuts, dumplings and shark’s fins. It was a good dish. Next we had dessert, a Precious Pudding, of glutinous rice and seven fruits, and a cup of sauce flavored with almond and containing dragon’s eyes, a tiny dumpling of red rice paste and brown sugar centres. It was delicious. I thought that was the end, but we commenced all over again, with pigeon’s eggs in broth (I speared mine and took it at one awful leap ) and bamboo pith, salad of peas, apple and orange. It took us two hours and a half, but it was worth it. CAROLINE G. PEELER. 17

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We are fearfully handicapped by being unable to speak French. We may be violently interested in a subject and crazy to know what the other fellow thinks about it, but when one can only say “tres bien” and “il fait beau” conversation languishes. Now I shall proceed to relate what we saw on that trip to Vauxaillon —in more or less detail. The villages are being slowly rebuilt and the people are being taken care of as best possible. They are living in dugouts in places still or in bare shelters, but before another year has passed 1 think they will be fairly well taken care of. They are clearing their small bits of land and planting their market garden crops as usual. There are many little grain fields, and it is startling at first to see a military grave or a pile of unused shells in the centre of a field. Of course, the roadsides are pretty well lined with barbed wire that has been cleared out, and there are filled-in trenches—and some that are not filled in—and shell holes everywhere. But they will go in time. The biggest change one notices in going into the devastated regions from the outskirts of Paris is the rough and unkempt look of the land. There are fields that are painfully ragged and left to wild growth and the trees are half dead or entirely gone—a thing not to be tolerated in prosperous France. There the very forests are clear and carefully taken care of—“Nature’s pruning being supplemented by Man’s”—and an untilled field is an unseen thing. The farther on you go the more noticeable this is. The little plots that are under cultivation are as neat and carefully tended as any in the country, but they are so few compared to amount of territory. Wherever there is a home, of any size or kind, there are flowers. Brilliant peonies and poppies and pansies and spicy pinks and wisteria vines, and wherever there is a wall or a fragment of a wall there are grape vines trained over it with all the care ever expended on the wonderful specimens in the Luxembourg Gardens. The fruit trees are pitiful. Most of them are either dead or in pretty bad shape. Of course, there are many orchards that were destroyed by the Huns—nothing left but rows of stumps—but there are a great many full of wonderful old, beautifully trained trees simply girdled and left there standing, dead. It means the loss of so many years and so much care and work that it is appalling. Don’t you folks worry about the condition of the soil on the battlefields. The French experts have been talking for a ‘year and a half about top soil and bottom soil and poisons in the soil and gases and chemical actions, and they can talk till doomsday, but such alfalfa and clover and grass and flowers I never saw as are growing on that battlefield in the centre of the Chemin des Dames. And at this time of year, the field is just full of Star of Bethlehem—I would much rather think of them growing on the battlefield than the poppies, wouldn't you ? It gives you a feeling of reverence and perfect content that the poppies don’t bring to your mind. I was glad to find them there. I wish you all could have seen the seed gardens of the Vilmorin’s outside of Paris. Houses full of calceolarias and fields of poppies and pansies and sweet peas, and a huge rock garden and wonderful old trees and—well, it’s the most wonderful place I have seen yet. Miss Nicolson would love it, as you all would. Loyally yours, ELEANOR FULLERTON. 16

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Social TUESDAY AFTERNOON TEAS Mrs. Edith Ellicott Smith, Chairman of the Land Army Committee. Pennsylvania League of Women Workers, spoke on “Opportunities for Women in Agriculture” on April 13. She told some of her very interesting personal experiences in farming and fruit growing. Mr. John C. Wisher, President of the new Iris Society, visited the school May 4. He told us of his trip thru French and English nurseries and gardens, showing very entertaining slides. He also brought some specimens of flowers from his own garden. He emphasized the fact that many of the finest peonies, iris, lilacs and other flowers have been originated by French plant breeders. Miss Margaret Law, a former student of the school, was here May 18, and spoke on her work in France. She has just recently returned, and told us some very entertaining experiences. Miss Emma Blakiston, on April 21, gave us an extra lecture on Americanization. It was well illustrated. A number of visitors were here to enjoy it and the tea which followed. The Seniors entertained the Faculty, Juniors and Specials at a “childrens” party, April 9. Appropriate decorations were used. The games played were farmer in the dell, winkium, and ring around a rosy. Ice cream cones, lolly pops and animal crackers were served at an early hour. The Delaware Valley Naturalists’ Union met at the school on Saturday, the fifteenth of May. After luncheon in the woods, they visited our various departments, including the greenhouses, poultry, jam kitchen and bees. In the afternoon. Miss Lee gave a most interesting talk on the foundation of the School of Horticulture and its work since, and was followed by Mr. Doan, who spoke on the ornamental characteristics and seasonal values in woody plants. We all agreed with Mr. Pennypacker, the “President of the Union,” who in thanking Mr. Doan, referred to the characteristic beauty of his descriptions as those of a “prose poem.” Mr. Doan’s address appears in this issue. 18