They know this and realize that they can take care of themselves, and we cannot but regard any attempt at throwing them again upon the charities of the outside world as demoralizing, misleading and fatal to them, as a self-supporting and independent class of industrial people, and a matter which should concern the State whose wards they are. * * * * * CLARA BARTON. _Charleston, S. C., June 24, 1894._ [Illustration: MISS BARTON'S ROOM. _Sleeping apartments, on living floor, Charleston Red Cross headquarters and warehouse._] [Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Clara Barton. IN THE OLD SCHLOSS OF BADEN. _A Group of the Fourth International Red Cross Conference held at the Court of Carlsruhe, Baden, 1887._] [Letterhead] _February 26, 1895._ _Copy of Circular Letter Sent to Each Clergyman and Committeeman of Our Sea Island Relief Work the Season After We Came Away from the Islands._ Although the claims upon our time are more than we can meet by working all the day and much of the night, the memory and the interest of our faithful Sea Island friends with whom we worked last year, through the months that followed the great storm, still claim much of our thoughts. Another planting season is approaching, and we are hoping that your people have been doing the preparatory work of ditching for the raising of good crops. If any have not begun this work, will you see those who would take an active interest in the public good, like yourself, and get them to start the work again at once, so that there may be as great an advance over last year's improvements as last year was over previous years. Get the neighbors to join together and clean out the old ditches, make all the new main ditches and canals that they can, and then make the smaller ones to connect with them; this will help to give them better health, less fever, larger crops and better ones. We hope they will give particular attention to their gardens and have even better ones this year than they did last, improving each season by experience and by learning from one another, particularly from those who have been most successful. Dr. Hubbell has made a list of seeds profitable to plant, in two groups, as follows: FOR EARLY PLANTING. Early purple-top strap-leaf turnip, early cabbage, lettuce, rutabaga turnips. In a hot-bed or in a protected place, where they can be covered at night when it is cold, the cabbage plants and tomato plants should be started at once, to be ready for transplanting when the ground is warm. FOR PLANTING WHEN THE TIME FOR FROST IS PAST.