270 THREE ACRES AND LIBERTY 



full of happy women and children at work or play. The men 

 come out on the belt line when their work in town is done. 

 The writer was riding through the city on an open cab, and 

 seeing hardly any children on the streets and in the parks, 

 he asked, "How is it that we see no children out?" "Ah, 

 sir," was the reply, "if you will see the children of Berlin you 

 must go out to the arbor colonies outside of the city. There 

 is where our children are." Subsequent visits to these colony 

 gardens showed that Berlin is by no means a childless city. 

 To judge from the multitudinous arbors to be seen from the 

 windows of the belt line cars there must be 50,000 to 75,000 

 of them. As far as the eye reaches the flagpoles, the 

 orderly fences, and the little structures can be seen; and 

 since the city has 2,000,000 inhabitants, it is very likely that 

 an estimate made by a city official of several hundred thou- 

 sands of children thus living in the open air, is not excessive. 

 The most beautiful and best-arranged gardens are not found 

 in the vicinity of railroads, but several miles out toward 

 the north and the south of the city. Here, where the soil 

 is better, fine crops are raised. 



If we turn our eyes homeward and contemplate the many 

 thousands of small efforts made in this country toward the 

 alleviation of city children's misery, we can say truthfully 

 that we in America are perhaps fully alive to the necessity 

 which has prompted the people of Berlin to action ; we only 

 need to be reminded of Mayor Pingree's potato patches on 

 empty city lots, our children's outing camps, our occasional 

 children's excursions, and the like. Still, there is nothing in 

 this country to compare with the thousands of Berlin 

 " arbor gardens " and their singularly convincing force. 

 Like a circus, all this is supposed to be for the children, 

 though it usually seems to need about two grown people 



