South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1916-03-18
GARDENS AID IN
C|TY'S CLEANUP
Members of Health Committee
Attend Lecture at
High School.

Considering the feature OF school
and home gardens one Of the pri-
mary factors III the success of South
Bends annual cleanup week. Mu-
nicipal Recreation Director B. F..
Barnes Friday night invited the
health committee, composed Of
members Of the Woman's Civic fed
Grafton and the Chamber Of Com
merce TO hear a lecture by Garden
Director Frank E Wolfe in the di-
rectOrs' room.
Mr.. Wolfe opened his address with
a complete survey of the school and
home garden efforts Of the recrea-
ton committee for last year and
spoke Of the successes and failures
Of the undertaking, stating that it
was hoped the latter would be en-
tirely overcome this year with new
methods TO meet certain problems.
Following his talk on the subjects
of school and home gardens. he gave
an illustrated talk TO demonstrate
how the vegetable garden and the
flower garden are the primary fac
tors in a cleanup campaign.
Slides Are Shown.
Slides showing the results attain
ed in other cities, ranging from Ore
son 20 Maine and from Florida to
Lower California. were used. These
slides were mostly Of back yards and
unsightly vacant properties before
being taken in hand by the garden
workers and after. Most Of the
conditions which were displayed can
be found almost anywhere in South
Bend and the same results can be
attained here. stated the speaker, by
proper interest of citizens and school
children.
II is for this reason the recreation
committee is expanding its efforts
with school children, and through
them their parents, not entirely for
the education Of the child, but also
for the health and beauty of the
community.
Contrasts Of back yards, their
fences and the porches OF homes inn
proved and unimproved brought
home wildly the power OF the hoe,
oReN0D e@AAh sinai BclChcASC VI oCtd
plus a daily effort towards the
proper cultivation of plants, whether
they be of the flower, vine or vege-
table variety. A few words of in
struction on how to plant a garden,
drape a fence with vines and group
shrubbery and small flowers about
a porch were given by the speaker.
He stated that this would be more
! extensively taught the school chill
| dren and advised the committee to
secure some of this kind of informa-
| ton from them, asserting that after
this seasons course of instruction
the children would probably know
more about the subject than their
parents or many who profess to have
some knowledge of the work Of
( Identification by means of plants
and flowers.
Plan Stock Companies.
The speaker also told the commit
tee something of the work and plans
outlined for the school and home
/ gardens department of the city for
this season. An entirely new fea-
/ ture will be the organization Of indi-
vidual school stock companies to be
conducted by the members and TO be
| supervised by the garden director.
/ Each company will have full charge
Of the gardens at it's school and each
member will be charged with one
share of stock at 90 cents par. For
/ his share of stock he will be en-
titled to a garden in the school plot
and a sufficient amount of seed to
plant il besides receiving the in
I struction Of the directors.
Another feature which will be
more guarded this year will be the
/ keeping of data on the value of each
/ child's produce so that at the end of
I the season the scorers will find no
/ difficulty in selecting the prize win
ners for the year.
other features Of home and school
| gardening were gone into by Mr..
Wolfe in an endeavor TO convince
the committee Of the value Of this
work 10 South Bend aside from an
| educational standpoint.