23, 



A check of the records in the Comptroller's office 

 indicated that there was approximately 6,000 acres of land 

 declared by the agencies to be farmland. It was felt at this 

 time that much or all of the land was not being used and could 

 easily be put back into some form of crop production. 



As spring was rapidly approaching and there was a lot 

 more to do than one man cotild handle, Warren P. Shepard was 

 brought on board to assist with the division activities. 



Soon after Mr. Colby and Mr. Shepard started working 

 on the project to locate and acquire vacant land for gardening 

 and farming use, it became apparent that getting land for division 

 use was no easy job. Working without the benefit of either fionds 

 or a paid staff, we soon found that in trying to locate land that 

 unforeseen problems arose, including agencies not knowing what 

 land they owned, wanting to keep land for future use, land tied 

 up in leases, and a reluctance to turn land over to this department. 



Agency liaison people were set up in most of the agencies 

 having land to assist this division in determining the availability 

 of certain parcels of land along with expediting the necessary 

 permission forms. 



Since the gardening program ranked high on Governor 

 Michael D\ikakis's list of priorities, it was felt that we should 

 do everything possible to get as many gardeners as possible a 

 plot of land to grow vegetables on. In many towns and cities there 

 was no suitable land that was state owned that could be used for 

 growing vegetables. Subsequently, a letter was sent to all of the 

 conservation commissions in every town and city across the state 

 to try and find out if the towns had their own community gardening 

 program and could they accommodate more gardeners. As the replies 

 to our questionnaire began to come in, we found that many towns 

 did have their own program. 



Once we compiled a list of towns with on-going gardening 

 programs, we were able to put people in touch with a group in their 

 own town. This has proved to be a satisfactory way to put individ- 

 uals in touch with a local gardening group vdiere the state has no 

 land. 



One of the problems that keeps cropping up in the 

 community gardening program is the fact that in many cases where 

 there are people wanting land, there is no suitable acreage to 

 work with. This is especially true in the metropolitan Boston 

 area where there obviously is a lot more people wanting to grow 

 vegetables where there is land for them to use. The division 

 worked closely with other groups such as the Park Department of 

 the City of Boston to locate all possible sites that coxold be 

 used for gardening. We have also been in touch with some of the 

 self-supporting groups across the state such as Harvest-of-Hope 

 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the Codman Farm in Lincoln. 



