River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1922-03-09

In his annual report to the President dated No
vember 81 1919 Secretary Lane called attention
to this situation, and said:
Somewhere and sometime, it seems to me-
system must be devised to dispense the people
of great cities the vacant lands surrounding
them, to give the masses real hold upon the
soil, and to replace the apartment house with
home in garden. Such system should enable
the ambitious and thrifty family not only to save
the entire cost of rent but possibly half the cost
of food, while at the same time enhancing its
standard of living socially and spiritually, well
economically"
The World war, which Illuminated many dark
corners revealed the gardening instinct in all its
original vigor and modified it for the service Of
the country without the formality of the selective
draft. 1t was great light thrown upon the char
acter, the capacity, the aspirations of the Ameri-
can people The National War Garden commits
sion was not, as most people suppose, govern
ment activity, though it had its headquarters I'm
Washington and enjoyed the moral support of
federal authority. 1t was the voluntary undertake
ing Of number of patriotic citizens, headed By
Charles Lathrop Pack of Lakewood. N. j, presi-
dent of the American Forestry association.
Millions of gardens-more than five millions
sprung into almost immediate existence.
The total product of this war-gardening scheme
between May, 1917 and June 1919, reached the
impressive figure of $1,250,000000. The plan
served its immediate purpose; but its deeper sig
people.
First it revealed the affinity of our people for
the SOIL -. To my mind this is one of the
most valuable lessons of the experience-the teach
ability of our people; the willingness to learn;
their eagerness to respond to disinterested lead
ership. For, be it known, not less than 100000
of these families entered into direct communea-
ton with the National War Garden commission
at Washington taking correspondence lessons at
the hands of the best experts money could employ,
or patriotic fervor command. War gar
dening became a science in many instances If
the war had lasted ten years longer, the nation
would have learned the greatest single fact in the
word-that man can make living from very
little land. And when that fact is finally learned
in the length and breadth of America there will
be neither a homeless a hungry
child.
The war-garden episode. great as it was in its
immediate results, only example of crude
emergency work. It's value for the present pur-
pose is to show that the country minded millions
In big cities can garden and will garden, If they
have chance; and that these facts have very
intimate relation to cost of living. To accomplish
the best results, however, they must have bet
ter chance than they found In vacant city plots.
Sixty-two years ago Abraham Lincoln, in a casu-
al speech, scarcely reported at the time, and the
tremendous import Of which has not been sensed
by the people even now, used these prophetic
words:
1.-THE most valuable of all arts will be the art
of deriving a comfortable subsistence from the
smallest area of soil"
OF all the persons mentioned In these pages
Mr.. Burbank is the most significant; and this not
merely because of his worldwide fame, but much
more because he is dealing at first hand with the
very elements that enter into the daily life Of the
home-in-a-garden. He is. of course, tho