|
CHAPTER XI
WAR GARDENS AS CITY ASSETS
A Thing of Beauty Is A Joy Forever
Every city aims to be as prosperous and
progressive as possible and nowadays most people realize that the city beautiful
is also likely to be the city commercially worth while. Probably no other one
enterprise will add more to a city's beauty than gardening. Gardening,
therefore, has double value. It both enriches and beautifies. By the same token
it develops civic pride and community spirit.
For these reasons any community should delight in being
called a "garden city," whether the name is applied literally or merely in a
figurative sense. One result of the war-garden movement is that practically any
American community can truthfully be designated by this term.
It is fortunate indeed that this is true. Unity of thought,
of action, of ideals, is the crying need of the hour in America. United, we
stand; divided, we fall. Probably nothing is more potent as a factor for
building up community spirit than gardening, particularly community gardening. A
link to bind men together is gardening. It creates common interests. It unites
all hands in the common end of producing food. Rubbing elbows in their garden
patches, lawyers and laborers, tradesmen and housewives, speedily discover that
they have much in common. One of the things they have in common is their
interest in their community; for each wishes to see it progress.
If the democracy of a nation depends upon the democracy of
the individuals who compose that nation, then assuredly the war garden is a
forge that is daily strengthening the links in our chain of democracy. Our
soldiers, shoulder to shoulder in the trenches, learned, that, whatever their
respective stations in life, they are brothers. In heat a little less intense,
but none the less sufficient to weld the strongest souls, our gardeners, too,
have fused into a solid unit. Link by link the chain of our democracy has grown
stronger.
With it has grown our civic pride–the pride of each community
in the progress it is making. One of the progressive things cities are proud of
to-day is the extent of their war-garden activities. Just as different
communities aimed to be the first "over the top" in a Liberty Loan campaign, and
to secure the flag which spoke of patriotic duty performed, so they have been
anxious to excel in the number of war gardens they have planted and in the
amount of food they have raised to help the boys "over there."
The National War Garden Commission has received from hundreds
of cities and towns throughout the United States expressions showing how proud
they are of their war-garden records. Typical items of this enthusiasm are
these: "Every bit of available land is being cultivated;" "There is scarcely a
home here without a war garden;" "All back yards and vacant lots are being
planted;" " We believe we have the best war gardens in the United States." Each
city wanted to make a record in food production. It is through rivalry of this
sort that cities progress.
War gardening, again, is an asset to any city in that it
adds to that city's material wealth. All food grown adds just so much to a
city's wealth. In the first place gardening gives the individual more money. By
planting a home garden he reduces his own expenses, saving many dollars on his
market and grocery bills. Whether he saves and invests this money in some local
enterprise, or spends it for necessities or even luxuries, the community
benefits. The money goes into houses and lots, into automobiles, books,
furniture, pianos, clothing, into everything, in fact, that modern man needs for
his comfort and happiness. Thus while he is helping himself, he is also helping
the merchants and the tradesmen of the city. He is adding to his own and the
community's resources.
The financial gain to a city from the war-gardening
enterprise is strikingly revealed by figures on the amount of produce raised. A
few cases will be illustrative. For instance, Indianapolis estimated the value
of its war-garden crop in 1918 at $1,473,165, an increase of more than $600,000
over the previous year. Denver placed its yield at $2,500,000 and Los Angeles at
$1,000,000. The figures for a few other cities were as follows: Minneapolis,
$1,750,000; Washington, District of Columbia, $1,396,5000; Grand Rapids,
Michigan, $900,000; Salt Lake City, Utah, $750,000; Louisville, Kentucky,
$750,000; Worcester, Massachusetts, $750,000; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, $500,000;
Dallas, Texas, $300,000; Scranton, Pennsylvania, $450,000; Rochester, New York,
$350,000; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, $250,000; Burlington, Iowa, $250,000;
Newark, New Jersey, $160,000; New Orleans, Louisiana, $125,000; Atlanta,
Georgia, $100,000.
 MIDST
TOWERING SKYSCRAPERS
In Bryant Park, New York, in the heart of the nation's throbbing metropolis,
there was planted a demonstration war garden, and a little garden house was
erected which served as a distributing center for literature of the National War
Garden Commission. Formal ceremonies were held at the time of the dedication of
the building.
Another gain which comes to a city from war gardening is
the improvement in the appearance of the place; and added beauty means added
worth. The poet who sang that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" might have
written with equal truthfulness–although, of course, we do not expect the minds
of poets to run in such practical and commercial channels–that it is also a
"thing of value forever." In the long run those improvements which add to the
beauty of a city or community add also to its material prosperity and to its
civic progress.
For this reason chambers of commerce and other trade
organizations do good service for their communities when they urge the
cleaning-up of all vacant lots and open spaces and their conversion into
gardens. Travelers have noted how much better many towns looked during the past
year or two because of the fact that most of the back yards "fronting" on the
railroad tracks have been improved into clean, well-kept vegetable plots. The
average back yard is bare of flowers, as these are reserved for the place of
honor in front of the house; and so a vegetable garden in the space at the rear
is highly to be commended as an attraction to the place. A person renting or
buying a piece of property which displays a healthy and prosperous-looking
garden is immediately put into a more favorable frame of mind by the sight of
this growing food and is willing to pay more for the place.
As to the vacant lots which straggled and scrambled along
many city streets before the days of war gardens, nothing more than a mere
statement of fact is necessary to convince any one that the removal of these
"sore spots" is advantageous in many ways. These barren lands, with their
unsightly briars and weeds, their ugly ash-heaps and piles of litter, detracted
not only from the appearance but from the commercial value of all the
surrounding property.
In hundreds of cases it was not realized until an actual
enumeration was made, how many acres of such unused land there were in a city.
There was scarcely a town of any size which did not contain a total of hundreds
of acres of such idle, useless land. With little effort these unsightly lots can
be converted into rich gardens to help feed the city and the nation. To clean up
all such places, therefore, and to put them to profitable use, is a standing
advertisement for the city. Furthermore, the example of one city leads to a
duplication of the good work elsewhere and an effort to improve on it. Thus the
gain of one is the gain of all. The city benefits, the state benefits, the
nation benefits.
Cleveland surpassed itself in war gardening. As a result
of the very active campaign conducted there under the auspices of the war garden
committee, a sub-committee of the mayor's advisory war committee, 40,000 war
gardens were planted in 1918. The city had set out to make it 25,000 but went
far beyond this figure. George A. Schneider, chairman of the committee, mapped
out a broad and comprehensive campaign which resulted in a splendid record. Carl
F. Knirk, garden director, was untiring in his efforts to make the work a
complete success. A survey was made of every vacant lot in the city and its
suburbs, with high-school boys aiding in this collection of data in their
respective districts. Six paid instructors were engaged and each placed in
charge of a certain district. Three tractor plows prepared the ground in the
larger tracts.
Other agencies coöperated in the movement. These included
women's clubs, schools, business houses, and manufacturing concerns. Western
Reserve University introduced a course in home gardening and it was opened to
some of the garden clubs and women interested in the work. Many of the
industrial plants provided land for their employés and hundreds of fine gardens
were the result. The companies also encouraged their men in the conservation of
their garden products. Thousands of the commission's war vegetable gardening and
canning and drying books were distributed to the city's home food growers
through the Cleveland Public Library and the Cleveland Public Schools and
through the Cleveland Trust company, the Citizens Savings and Trust company, the
Superior Savings and Trust company, the Guardian Savings and Trust company, and
other public-spirited institutions.
Even a beautiful city park system loses none of its charm
when a part of it is turned to utilitarian purposes. Historic Boston Common was
none the less attractive to the passer-by during the season of 1918 because a
fine demonstration war garden was growing at one side of it. Even when the
necessities of war do not make it such an important and desirable prospect, a
trim, and well-cultivated series of vegetable plots such as displayed their
patriotic beauty there, would not detract from the natural beauty of the
landscape.
Potomac Park, in the shadow of the tall and stately
Washington Monument, was a constant source of pleasure to the thousands of
automobilists who sped along the river driveway. In the afternoon and twilight
the sight of hundreds of war gardeners cultivating their vegetable patches in
sight of the White House and the majestic dome of the Capitol was a picture
never to be forgotten. Down at the lower end of the Chesapeake Bay near where
busy transports were loading their precious human freight and their supplies for
France, the Commission on Beautifying the City of Norfolk took charge of the
war-garden campaign and conducted it to a successful conclusion, adding more
than $200,000 worth of vegetables to the food wealth of that rich truck-growing
section of the country.
In New York City an extremely interesting war garden was
growing in Bryant Park. There in the heart of the great metropolis, shaded by
over-towering sky-scrapers and beside the majestic public library, a small war
garden spoke its message to the world. This demonstration plot was under the
direction of A.N. Gitterman, chairman of the war garden committee of the
Department of Parks for the Borough of Manhattan. The little garden-house which
stood there was dedicated in the spring of 1918, and from this center were
distributed large quantities of the National War Garden Commission's books and
other literature to help the "city farmers" of Greater New York. The work of
this garden, like that of the millions of other war gardens throughout the
country, was helping to keep the light burning on the Statue of Liberty at the
entrance of this great harbor of a free country.
 WAR
GARDEN ON BOSTON COMMON
There were hundreds of visitors daily at this fine demonstration garden and the
adjoining food cottages, and the result was partly shown by the fact that there
were more than 30,000 war gardens in Boston in 1918. In this series of gardens
on "The Common" there were thirty-five varieties of vegetables, practically
everything except corn being included. Miss Anna Biddle Frismouth with several
assistants was in charge of the gardens for the Women's City Club.
In his report at the end of the season to William F. Grell,
Park Commissioner of the Borough of Manhattan, Mr. Gitterman said:
We maintained two demonstration gardens, one at Union
Square, Fourteenth Street and Broadway, and the other at Bryant Park,
Forty-Second Street and Sixth Avenue, where headquarters are maintained in a
model garden-house which was donated to the city by the National War Garden
Commission of Washington. This garden has been a great success from its
dedication when President Pack turned the first spade of earth in this most
valuable garden-plot in the world.
Intensive gardening was here profitably demonstrated as is
shown by the results achieved in the limited area allotted to each variety.
Small blackboards explained each operation in the little garden when the
supervisor was working, planting, weeding, cultivating, thinning, spraying, or
picking. In addition, information in detail was given on the special
bulletin-board concerning insects and their control, weeds and their relation to
agriculture, spraying formulæ, seed varieties, plant diseases, and other garden
data of interest to the war gardener.
In the Borough of Manhattan there was an increase,
according to the report, of seventy per cent. in the war-gardening activities of
1918 as compared with the year preceding. In 1919 it is expected that every
available vacant lot will be planted.
More than one hundred and sixty loads of manure were
furnished during the season of 1918 and delivered to the gardens from the
various riding academies near Central Park.
The demonstration garden in Union Square had soil but a foot
in depth over the subway roof and this served to impress upon the minds of
pessimistic owners of vacant land the value of cultivation even under a
handicap, as the results obtained from this one foot of soil were considerable.
A constant stream of visitors recorded their names and
addresses in the guest-book at the little garden-house in Bryant Park. People
from almost every city in the United States and a great number from European
countries inspected the place.
Cities, as well as individuals, can entertain angels unaware,
and many a community that encouraged war gardening purely as a patriotic
measure, has found that city farming is a paying as well as a patriotic
activity. Bread cast upon the waters, in the form of gardening efforts to help a
famishing world, has returned after many days as a rich reward in increased
civic wealth and betterment. Decidedly, war gardens are an asset to any city.
 "COUNTY
FAIR" IN BRYANT PARK
An exhibition of canned products was held in the war garden on Forty-second
street, New York, and eleven of the Commission's National Capitol Prize
Certificates were awarded to prize-winners in the various subdivisions of
Manhattan. These were presented by President Charles Lathrop Pack, the blue
ribbon going to Mrs. I.C. Kahn, at left of table decoration.
|
|
|
