Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1910-04-26

Springtime is gardening time. To him
who makes a business of farming and
to him who depends for his livelihood
upon the produce of a truck garden, the
advent of spring may mean nothing more
than the opening of a business season.
But at some time or other the ancestors
of all of us have titled the fields; and
when the winter breaks, and the grass
begins to show green, and the trees bud,
then our inheritance begins to make it
self felt in the blood Consequently ev-
erybody wants to make a garden, and
the more impossible this feat, the great
Ell is the desire. The dweller in the city
flat sees only the JOY and the romance
of digging in the smelly earth and plant
ing the seeds which promise so many
dainty dishes in the by and by. Those
persons actually near to the soil, es-
pecially young American gentlemen
over 10 and under is years old, living in
raral communities, take different view
Of the situation. To them making
garden means simply onerous and disa-
greeable TOLL, interfering with the seri-
Gus business of life, which is, of course,
the playing of baseball.
But this year more than ever before in
ing a garden has a most serious aspect
One of the visible results of the present
era of high prices of food Is the steady
increase in the number of city people
who are moving to the suburbs for the
purpose of owning garden which will
furnish a good proportion of the food T.
be consumed upon the family table. The
public school garden and the vacant lot
farm have given great number of city
- - III, ~,
gardening. and they can manage the lit
tie suburban home plant while the head
of the house is at work in the city, there
by materially reducing the amount of the
grocery bill. ...
VeritabIe miracles OF production have
been wrought by suburbanite gardeners.
One OF the most attractive stories Of this
kind is that OF two boys who were the
sons of a minister. He was the pastor
of a poverty-stricken congregation, and
his salary was so small that it had to
be supplemented In some way. The boys
were youngsters of that age when base
ball on the back lot is the chief sum-
mer interest, but they were made of the
stuff that gave them desire to be use
full in the solution of the problems finan-
cial that engaged the mind of their cler-
zeal father. So they persuaded him to
vacate the manse and take little house
and garden plot which rented for Sl20 a
year They had no horse, wagon nor
pillow. so they exchanged their own labor
when il could be spared from their truck
patches, for the use of these things. They
planted one acre in cucumbers, half an
acre each in cabbages, melons, potatoes,
and popcorn, and three-fourths of an
acre in sweet corn, with an acre and
one-quarter in other truck. They sold
the cucumbers for S115 the cabbage for
$50. the melons for s6s. the sweet corn
for s6s and the other crops in proportion
s51S in all. Meanwhile the father was
SO delighted with the sturdy industry or
his two half-grown boys that 1t counter
acted the evil effects of worry under the
weight Of financial cares, and the far
was restored to health and happiness
In another instance a Detroit man who
had ruined his health and broken his
fortune in an ill-starred country newspa-
per venture as a last resort took charge
of an old nursery that was almost as
poverty stricken as he was. His entire
assets consisted of limited amount OF
household furniture, one hoe, one shovel.
two forks, a horse and buggy with a
chattel mortgage blanket on ii, and 5000
invested in baby girl securities. With
less than half an acre for garden pur-
poses he raised 1859 worth of produce.
So strikingly successful was the little
venture that il brought a turn in the tide
of his affairs The agricultural press got
hold of the story, and now he and his
wife are earning as much writing for the
farm papers as they are from their gar
dens. which have grown to many times
the size of the original venture. And it
was all done on a little plot no larger
than a vacant lot to be found almost
anywhere in city.
An experience meeting of people who
have tried suburban gardening on the
suburbanite scale is full of interest. One
lady reports that she kept an accurate
account of the time required to do her
marketing and of the time she spent in
her garden after she had begun to grow
her own vegetables. She found she could
keep her garden in fine trim in the same
time that she had spent going to market.
Another woman was unable to swing an
ordinary hoe in her little garden of 40
feet square, so she used an old butcher
knife. She declares that it greatly bene
flied her health and helped her pocket
book at the same time. One little boy
planted a melon patch in sandy soil, and
became a very Croesus in the boy-world
as a result
The gardening of today is not the same
as it was a generation ago. Then it was
pulling weeds by hand, and working with
hoe. Improved wheel hoes and the
like now have eliminated nearly all of
the backaehes and headaches from gar