GARDENING AFTER THE WAR 57 



jNIay we not learn a lesson from those remarks? 



It cannot be denied that impulses and tendencies born under 

 the stress and strain of great national crises, or out of necessity, 

 frequently perpetuate themselves because they are found to fill a 

 void that, though existing before, was not realized because the 

 situation could not be seen in proper perspective. 



Pre-War Conditions. 



Before the war home gardening, both as concerns vegetables and 

 flowers, was spasmodic, intermittent, local. Indeed, it was con- 

 fined largely to the fairly well-to-do members of the population; 

 to those in whom the love of the beautiful was developed, and who 

 had the wherewithal to satisfy any reasonable longings. War 

 conditions changed matters, and particularly on this side of the 

 Atlantic. Both in Canada and the United States a new interest 

 suddenly burst into being. Where formerly the suburban lot 

 dweller attended to his garden needs with more or less of an apology 

 in public, today we find that the apology is offered rather by the 

 man or woman who does not cultivate the soil. 



Times change and we change with them. It is no longer con- 

 sidered the height of humor for the comic papers to picture Mr. 

 Suburbanite living in Lonesomehurst, and carrying home the family 

 vegetables from the city. 



The continually soaring prices of common necessities, — the 

 high cost of living, — rendered necessary the tilling of available 

 land quite apart from the more or less spectacular (if more or less 

 ineffective) bursts of enthusiasm that led people here and there to 

 become "Potatriots" as it has been expressed, to demonstrate their 

 patriotism "by wearing a potato on the front lawn." 



Yes, notwithstanding these misdirected efforts (and they were 

 nothing but the faults of ignorant enthusiasm), excellent results of 

 national importance have attended the cultivation of suburban 

 lots, and thousands of dollars worth of vegetables were last year 

 raised on land that hitherto had remained unproductive. 



This year equally impressive totals are anticipated, and though 

 we may turn back through the garden gate, back to the ways of 



