The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1908-04-17
SCHOOL GARDENING IN THE
GRADES.
BY Miss Estella Crowder.
(PART TWO.)

AS school gardening tends to i'm
prove the farms so also can 1t become
beneficial to the towns. The settlers
coming in from the eastern states
naturally come into our towns first.
They may come from some little east
ern city or town which has long been
established, and is place OF cul-
tured people and beautiful surround
ings. 1t will contain churches,
schools, paved streets and parks.
what does the settler see in the little
towns in Idaho? Very likely he will
be disappointed and will say, "Oh,
the climate is all right, but ! want
to take my family where conditions
are more favorable to success. |
want to live in a place that is i'm
proved
And then the better person will
move on to the coast or to some more
improved section and the smaller
places will get the secondary man.
1t is said that Idaho is new state
and therefore cannot have all the ad-
vantages offered by the older states.
The citizens of the smaller towns say
that they must have time, several
years before they can support a pre-
sentable town. Their greatest plea is
that the eastern man is not just, that
he but looks upon the surface. Grant
ed, but does not the average person
Judge the stranger by the clothes
that he wears? Just SO with our
towns. The stranger cannot always
take the time to discover the many
resources of locality. He must
Judge the prosperity of a country by
the general appearance of that coun-
try. If the streets are badly main
tanned and the majority of the labor
ing mems homes i'll kept, then the
stranger has a perfect right to judge
harshly. No town, however new,
should support dirty streets and i'll
kept door ways.
Idaho, Nevada, Washington, Gre
gon and Montana are new states and
are but in the process of being peo-
pied.
They have the capacity for sup
porting fifty persons where they now
support but one individual.
People in the more crowded states
are beginning to realize this fact and
to take advantage of the opportuni
ties offered. People from all over
the United States are flocking in here
in search of homes.
Washington, Oregon and Montana
have the advantage of Idaho and Ne
vada in several ways. These three
states contain no great stretches Of
arid desert land. They have been
longer settled and therefore have
acquired better educational systems
and more public property. Then each
of these states can boast of large ci-
ties, in which are gathered persons of
education, means and culture. Wash
ington has Tacoma, Seattle and Spo-
kane; Oregon has Portland; while
Montana can point to Helena and
Butte.
These facts are not lost to home
seekers, who usually are seeking for
suitable places in which to rear fam
flies.
There are two types of homeseek-
ers who are coming into these west
ern states. There is that shiftless
moving mass that never settles down
in one part and makes permanent
location. These people are usually
content to live in any kind of dwell
ing and in almost any condition. A
family will come into town in an old
covered wagon, father driving, moth
er reclining luxuriously in the shade
on a pile of old soiled bed quilts, and
the youngsters sticking bare heads
and feet out of the end of the vehicle.
The eldest son will come trudging
along behind, leading an old raw
boned individual, the family COW.
This family will camp on the out
skirts of the town for day or two
and then will finally settle down In
some old tumble-down tenement
house, where the rent is cheap and
premises such that they bear al.
most any treatment. Here the mem.
bers of the household will pass the
winter or summer, when that fever
of unrest will seize them and they
will again load up the old wagon, tic
a rope around he old cows horns and
depart for new regions.
Then there are those persons who
are seeking homes that they may
really improve their condition ant
give their families opportunities
The head of the family, having heart
of the profits to be made in the west