The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-04-22

the bay on Staten Island. or across the Hudson river in New Jersey, or the other way, across the sound in Long Island, are not too aged to work in a garden. After spending the first year or two in the country, even the most enthusiastic sub urbanites are likely to arrive at the con cluSion that a vegetable garden must either be taken very seriously in the mat ter of work or else classed as luxury with the wages of a full-grown man in- cluded in the bill. But since President Wilson issued his call to the garden farm CT, all of that hard earned experience has been recklessly abandoned by the subur- banites. Flower gardens and tennis courts in this part of the country, and in many cases parts of golf courses, are now being prepared for vegetable seed.
 As far as Long Island is concerned, no one is in a better position to judge the rapidly growing enthusiasm for garden
 ing than Ralph Peters, president of the Long Island railroad. Peters lives out pretty far on the island and is constant ly going back and forth through one town after another. Here is his testimony:
 q have been noticing that the back yard garden movement is making tre- mendous strides. In every community people have started little gardens of their own, in many instances people who never dreamed of doing such thing before Our agricultural department is getting more requests for information every day. and we are constantly being asked to lend our land to people who want to cultivate it. We have already given the use of our right of way in a number of places to those who are starting agricultural camps where men and women may learn practi- cal truck gardening"
 Over in New Jersey mass meetings are now being held nightly to help solve the national food problem tbis summer. In the endless chain of towns made up of New York commuters, many of whom work in Wall street 2 regular schedule is being worked out along the following lines:
 Appointment of an active committee on conservation.
 Acceptance of offers of citizens of plots of good garden land and the agri- cultural implements needed
 Employment of an agricultural ex- pert to supervise the community gar dens and insure their success.
 Cultivation of community plots by hired labor and by the labor of vol unteer school children of suitable age.
 Encouragem of home gardens with practical advice and assistance from the experienced members of gar den clubs and the community agri- cultural expert.
 Establishment of canning clubs for the canning and preserving of all sur plus vegetables and fruit for winter use.
 vegetables are going to be raised in our regular garden, as usual. this year, but, in addition, am going to cultivate lot more land" James N Wallace, president of the Central Trust company. who lives up the Hudson, on the Jersey side, and is an enthusiastic golfer, remarked this week. adding:
 And I am going to have one gar den of my own and do every lick of work done in it myself. We are go- ing to can all of the food we can use ourselves and see that the rest goes where it is needed"
 Many Wall street men who will go to work every morning this summer in their private yachts will set similar example Here is what Fairfax Harri- son, president of the Southern railway, had to say this week about the cumu- llative effect of the volunteer gardening movement:
 "The planting of gardens on vacant ground in cities and towns should be encouraged, for, while the production 1, from any one of these gardens may seem to be insignificant. in the aggre-