March 4, 1896.J 



Garden and Forest. 



9i 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1896. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Article : — Farming; on Vacant City Lots 91 



Rate of Growth of Loblolly Pine -i. A". Mlodziansky. 92 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter IV. Watson. 93 



New or Little-known Plants : — Nolina recurvata. (With figure.) 94 



Plant Notes 95 



Cultural Department: — Indoor Ferneries G. A, Woolson. 96 



Cephalotus follicularis G. IV. Oliver. 96 



Fuchsias and Gloxinias T. D. Hatfield. 97 



Native Cypripediums Edward J. Canning: 97 



Begonia Socotrana Wilkelm Miller. 97 



Correspondence: — Bedding Plants at the Botanical Garden, St. Louis. Missouri. 



Fanny Copley Seaz'ey. 98 



Lettuce under Glass F.E.Carr. 9S 



The Mexican Plane Tree B. H. 98 



Recent Plant Portraits 98 



The Forest : — Forest Protection. — II Gifford Pinchot. 99 



Recent Publications 99 



Notes 100 



Illustration : — Nolina recurvata. Fig. 10 95 



Farming on Vacant City Lots. 



DURING these times of agricultural depression the 

 profits realized by farmers, even under the best con- 

 ditions, are meagre enough, and, therefore, when Mayor 

 Pingree, of Detroit, first conceived the idea of utilizing 

 vacant city lots for the growing of potatoes by the unem- 

 ployed of that city — that is, by men who were generally 

 quite ignorant of the theory and practice of cultivating the 

 soil — the experiment was looked upon as visionary, if not 

 ridiculous. The result of the first year's cultivation, how- 

 ever, which enabled nearly one thousand families to sup- 

 port themselves through the winter by their crops alone, 

 stimulated certain public-spirited citizens of New York to 

 make a similar effort here, and the result is published in 

 No. 1 of the periodical Notes, published by the New York 

 Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. Of 

 course, the philanthropic aspect of this experiment is the 

 one of prime importance. The result proves that many 

 persons who own vacant land would prefer to have it cul- 

 tivated instead of lying idle and unproductive, and that a 

 very limited area will suffice to raise enough vegetables to 

 contribute largely to the support of a family through the 

 winter. It proves, too, that very many of the destitute 

 people in tenement-houses are willing to work and can be 

 made to support themselves with a very little help advanced 

 as a loan. Besides this, the project offers a natural plan for 

 giving to the people who dwell in stifling tenement-houses 

 opportunity to work for themselves in the open air and 

 under healthful conditions. It gives mothers the advan- 

 tage of taking their children out of the heated houses and 

 giving them a taste of rural life. It enables the superan- 

 nuated and partially crippled to support themselves. In 

 addition to these advantages, the entire scheme has a sub- 

 stantial business basis, with none of the odious and de- 

 pressing suggestions of a charity. 



Naturally, however, the educational side of this vacant- 

 lot farming will have a special interest to readers of a 

 journal devoted to the art of cultivating the soil. Whatever 

 is the fundamental reason for the widespread discontent 

 with rural life now prevalent, for the general exodus from 

 the country to the town, for deserted farms and the depre- 



ciation in the value of land, every one admits that the one 

 thing needed to insure a living profit from the cultivation of 

 the soil, is greater skill and higher intelligence applied to 

 agricultural practice. A very striking proof of this is given 

 in another leaflet published by this same association, and 

 entitled An Inquiry into the Causes of Agricultural Depression 

 in New York State. An observing agent — a Pennsylvania 

 farmer named J. W. Kjelgaard — was employed to travel 

 through the agricultural districts of New York for the pur- 

 pose of making inquiries and reporting on the various 

 phases of this problem, and he observed a singular air of 

 prosperity in the farms about Ithaca which he had not 

 met with elsewhere. The reason for this was discovered 

 to be that an agricultural experiment station was in the 

 centre of this fortunate area. This is a significant fact, and 

 Mr. Kjelgaard reported that all farmers agreed that the sta- 

 tion was an obvious help to them. He found, too, that a 

 hundred miles from Ithaca one man who had taken a course 

 of agricultural training at Cornell University was carrying 

 the benefit of his knowledge to his neighbors, so that they 

 were plainly profiting by it. Correspondence with the other 

 stations brought out the fact that the stations were all bear- 

 ing excellent fruit in this direction. Farmers in distant 

 parts of the state not only write to inquire as to the best 

 methods of cultivation of particular crops, and how to ward 

 off the ravages of disease and insects, but they actually 

 come to the station in considerable numbers to see and to 

 learn. 



In every city where this vacant-lot farming has been 

 successful the soil has been cultivated in accordance with 

 the teachings of science. The original ignorance on the 

 part of some of these tenement-house farmers as to the 

 simplest principles of plant structure and plant growth was 

 almost pathetic, but pains were taken to show them how 

 land should be broken up, how the fertilizer should be used, 

 how the seed should be sown, and how the plants should 

 be set, with the reasons for these operations. Every pro- 

 cess from the very beginning to the end was carefully 

 supervised, so that this vacant-lot farming, apart from its 

 direct pecuniary profit, had a much more important func- 

 tion as a school of agriculture. It not only furnished health- 

 ful and profitable work for a great many people, but it 

 gave these same unskilled people an opportunity to use their 

 minds ; it encouraged thought and aroused sluggish intel- 

 lectual processes. These people are actually learning a 

 trade, an honorable and profitable trade, and learning it in 

 the best way possible. A man who raises half an acre 

 of potatoes and early vegetables under wise direction need 

 no longer call himself unskilled, and it is his own fault if he 

 is shiftless. It may be added that these tenement-house 

 farmers learn a great many things besides the mere culti- 

 vation of land. They learn, for example, how to sell — 

 that is, how to transact business in the most effective way. 

 Of course, potatoes and vegetables sold from a miniature 

 farm at wholesale prices would not pay ordinary wages. 

 But the potatoes, instead of being sold by the barrel, are, in 

 many instances, handed out by the quart and half-peck at 

 the best retail prices. In this way these small farmers 

 learn the value of quality in their products. They find that 

 they can take a bunch of choice radishes, freshly picked 

 from the ground and carefully put up, and sell it for live or 

 six cents when the market rate is only two or three cents. 

 The quality of some of the products of this experiment may 

 be estimated by the fact that the second prize at the late 

 Live Stock Show in this city was awarded to the potato 

 exhibit from these vacant- lot farms. 



We cannot but assume that many of these tenement- 

 house farmers who have had the advantage of this year of 

 schooling will discover that there is a happier and whole- 

 somer life for them outside of the congested districts of 

 great cities. It would not be surprising if some of the 

 graduates of these schools, who have learned to make a 

 livelihood by truck-farming, should go into the rural dis- 

 tricts and instruct farmers in their oil Now, it is 

 the ambition of the country boy to get to the city, whili 



