VACANT CITY LOT CULTIVATION 27 



The Vacant Lot Cultivation system is a school wherein 

 gardeners are taught a trade (to most of them a new trade), 

 farming, which offers employment for more people than all 

 the other trades and professions combined : a trade suscep- 

 tible of wide diversification and offering many fields for spe- 

 cializing. But little capital is required ; any other field would 

 require large outlay. Its greatest advantage, however, is 

 that the idle men and the idle land are already close to each 

 other the men can reach their gardens without changing 

 their domiciles or being separated from their families. 

 1 It was not until after several years that the full effect of 

 the work was realized. A few gardeners each year from the 

 beginning have, after one or two years' experience, taken 

 small farms or plots of land to cultivate on their own account, 

 or have sought employment on farms near the city ; but the 

 number is quite small compared to the whole number 

 helped. Now more than ten per cent of those that had 

 gardens previously have for the last two years been working 

 on their own account. Out of nearly eight hundred garden- 

 ers, more than eighty-five either rented or secured the 

 loan of gardens that season and cultivated them wholly at 

 their own expense, and many others would have done so 

 had suitable land been available. The number of gardens 

 forfeited on account of poor cultivation or trespassing was 

 only two out of 800 plots given out. 



The first important advance was early in the spring of 1904, 

 when it became known that a large tract of land that had 

 been in gardens for several years would be withdrawn from 

 use. A number of the gardeners came together to talk over 

 the situation. One proposed that they form a club to lease 

 a tract of land and divide it up among themselves. The plan 

 was readily agreed to, and a nine-acre tract on Lansdowne 



