3U 



HORTICULTURt. 



September 29, 1906 



SEEDSMEN AND CIVIC IMPROVE- 

 MENT. 



Address bv J. Horace McFarland, Presi- 

 dent American Civic Association, be- 

 fore ttie American Seed Trade 

 Association, Toledo, Ohio, June 

 26, 1906. 



Civic improvement is a phrase which 

 makes but a vague impression on 

 many minds. There may arise a 

 thought of ash cans and garbage re- 

 ceptacles, a memory of women's work 

 and worry over unpleasant conditions 

 long endured, a feeling that civic work 

 is a sort of philanthropic diversion, 

 akin to foreign missionary effort. Few 

 consider interest in the improvement 

 of home and national living conditions 

 as a business matter, and there are 

 not many who are ready to give It 

 more than a passing thought, uncon- 

 nected with the incurring of any ex- 

 pense. 



To the fact that there are a tew who 

 willingly interest themselves in civic 

 improvement the organization for 

 which I speak owes its existence, and 

 that this few tends to become many I 

 am glad to testify. The growing ap- 

 preciation of the great business im- 

 portance of securing the best possible 

 conditions of city living, both in re- 

 spect to administration and as to 

 physical details, is most encouraging. 

 That an organized body of active busi- 

 ness men such as this should be will- 

 ing to consider the relation of its mem- 

 bers to civic improvement is further 

 deeply significant of the wholesome 

 trend of the times. 



Let me briefly define civic improve- 

 ment as now imderstood, in order that 

 our consideration may proceed upon a 

 rational basis. We of the American 

 Civic Association hold that our work 

 has to do with making America at 

 least as beautiful and as clean about 

 the habitations of man as it was be- 

 fore civilization unthinkingly defiled it. 

 Upon this simple basis there is a con- 

 siderably varied structure of definite 

 detail which I may but mention in due 

 course, first seeking to firmly establish 

 the premise. 



That the forests and plains, the 

 mountains and meadows of America 

 were originally most beautiful and 

 completely sanitary needs no argu- 

 ment. That as man has subdued the 

 natural features to his necessity and 

 his profit he has generally disregarded 

 both beauty and sanitation any one 

 can prove for himself, who will in his 

 mind's eye contrast the remaining bits 

 of untouched nature with the grime 

 and garbage and ugliness that beset 

 us so considerably in most of our 

 cities. That as wealth has given to 

 some, and humanitarian thought to 

 others, a tendency toward desiring 

 beauty in living conditions, we have 

 begun to make, in the words of Will- 

 lam Morris, "the habitations of man 

 at least as beautiful as those of the 

 beasts." is entirely obvious. 



That this interest in clean and beau- 

 tiful surroundings is the duty of all, 

 and that it tends to the moral, spirit- 

 ual, physical and financial benefit of 

 all, is by no means so fully recognized. 

 If it was, back yards would soon cease 

 to be nasty, factories would be clean 

 and sightly, cities would be smokeless, 

 poleless and harmoniously beautiful. 



billboards would become but a hateful 

 memory, while parks and playgrounds 

 would multiply much faster than the 

 more expensive policemen, hospitals 

 and criminal courts they tend to dis- 

 place. It the economy of beauty and 

 cleanliness was recognized, at least 

 a part of the many millions of Ameri- 

 can money now annually spent in a 

 definite though unconscious search for 

 urban beauty in foreign lands would 

 remain at home, because home would 

 satisfy rather than depress, and our 

 own land become in turn a place of 

 pilgrimage for other reasons than 

 those of mere bigness and enterprise. 

 WTien we become economically wise 

 enough to place a commercial value 

 upon civic as well as natural beauty, 

 our cities will come to have harmoni- 

 ous architecture as well as fabulous 

 magnificence, and Niagara, the White 

 Mountains, the Yosemite and the 

 Yellowstone will be in no more danger 

 of greedy desecration than the Alps or 

 the Sistine Madonna. 



No one of us stands tor sordid ugli- 

 ness about his own home, yet collec- 

 tively we have created and do yet en- 

 dure the waste of city ugliness about 

 the streets and the public places. 

 I5ach one guards the inside of his own 

 home against the intrusion of un- 

 pleasant things that may offend the 

 nose, the eye and the ear, but I sus- 

 pect that there may be among the ex- 

 cellent gentlemen before me some one 

 who is not guiltless of thrusting upon 

 his neighbor outdoors the noisy bill- 

 board he would not want in or close 

 to his personal habitation! 



When we realize that we are con- 

 stantly surrounded on all sides by the 

 conditions of government, good or bad, 

 that we have created for ourselves, 

 and that we maintain, whether for 

 welfare or otherwise, as we see fit, the 

 personal responsibility of every citi- 

 zen becomes alarming. By an arrange- 

 ment of financing called insurance, we 

 provide for the payment of certain 

 sums, collected from all who partici- 

 pate, to each other in the event of 

 death or other contingencies. When 

 enough of us neglect to look after 

 our insurance interests, trouble comes 

 to us and to those whose malfeasance 

 we have long condoned. By an ar- 

 rangement of franchises and financing 

 called government, we provide our- 

 selves at wholesale rates with police 

 and fire protection, paved and lighted 

 streets, water to drink, schools for our 

 children, and sometimes parks for 

 ourselves. "tVTien enough of us neglect 

 to look after our governmental inter- 

 ests, we are all served less well than 

 we like, and ugliness increases in the 

 land; whereupon we foolishly blame 

 our servants whom we have some- 

 times encouraged in their carelessness 

 and venality, and cry "Graft, Graft!" 

 By an arrangement between the skill 

 of the grower and the skill of the 

 seller, seeds are produced on contract 

 and sold to the public. If the seller Is 

 careless and the grower does not 

 "rogue" the crop, thei-e is trouble and 

 loss impending for some one. But, 

 then, the seller blames himself for 

 carelessness, as he should, and next 

 year inspects his crops more carefully. 



Is there any real difference between 

 insurance, government and seed-grow- 

 ing? I can see none, in the essentials, 

 and in each instance neglect is paid 

 for more or leas painfully Why not, 

 then, "rogue" the government, as we 



have the seed-growers and the insur- 

 ance companies, and thus get what 

 we pay for, full value, full weight, full 

 measure? Because we have not done 

 this, in respect to government, there 

 is now need for civic improvement, 

 and this need is worth attention by all 

 litizens, for all are affected, all con- 

 rerned. 



Seedsmen particularly have a rela- 

 tion to civic improvement, aside from 

 their position as more than average 

 good citizens. They deal in commo- 

 dities that are involved in the move- 

 ment for better conditions in cities. 

 Each seedsman has it in his power to 

 foster a modern educational facility 

 which is doing much for the cities in 

 which it has been introduced, while at 

 the same time actually making busi- 

 ness in the seed trade. I refer to the es- 

 tablishment of children's gardens, 

 sometimes as an adjunct to the schools 

 and sometimes as a purely philan- 

 thropic effort of organizations or of 

 individuals. 



How many of the adult citizens of 

 Toledo, for example, know wheat, oats, 

 rye upon sight? It is not so many 

 years since I employed a capable artist 

 in New York City to make a design 

 in which the beautiful and graceful 

 Iilant of the maize, or corn, was in- 

 cluded. When the design came to me, 

 it showed ears of corn growing from 

 the tips of the stalk! The artist had 

 no corn to observe, and had never had 

 that intimate opportunity to know 

 about it which every boy in the two 

 hundred and twenty-eight who are this 

 very afternoon engaged in the Yonkers 

 Garden School has! These lively 

 boys, won from the gutter and the 

 slums, know beans as well as corn, 

 and they grow cabbage that would 

 meet the seedsman's ideal, sometimes. 



The Yonkers Garden School is only 

 one among an increasing number I 

 might describe. It is not a vacation 

 garden. It opens as early as the 

 ground can be worked, and continues 

 until frost. The grand woman who 

 has inspired and financed this good 

 work writes me thus: "You will be 

 interested to know that approximately 

 one-half of our garden school boys 

 are starting home gardens, and that 

 many girls come up to the gardens to 

 see how their brothers work, and to 

 plant gardens for themselves at 

 home." Now, can any seedsman sug- 

 gest that this Yonkers effort is not 

 worth while, or that it does not direct- 

 ly stimulate the use of seeds? The 

 testimony is that many a back yard 

 has given up its tin cans and trash to 

 admit rows and beds of vegetables and 

 flowers; that numei-ous vacant lots 

 have been put to use in growing crops 

 other than unpleasant weeds. Obvi- 

 ously, too, it is not only the present 

 stimulation of the seed business that 

 counts, but the production of scores 

 and hundreds of practical gardeners 

 among the boys and girls who are to 

 1" the men and women of a few years 

 hence. Will these garden school- 

 trained children altogether give up 

 planting, sowing and reaping when 

 they possess homes of their own? 

 Hardly! 



In Cleveland, fostered by the splen- 

 didly organized Home Gardening Asso- 

 ciation of that city, a superb work has 

 tieen done and is proceeding. Indeed, 

 the school authorities have now made 

 i-ardening a part of the school work, 

 i: eating the unique office of "Curator 



