VACANT LOT GARDENING 23 



it. Many physicians have testified to the good effects, both 

 upon the individual and the city, of such garden work. 



Criminality. — Hundreds of those who are engaged in the 

 vacant lot gardening in various cities are people who would 

 otherwise spend much time in loafing on the streets, or fre- 

 quenting bad resorts.. Their time is far better engaged in 

 the garden work. Persons who have spent many nights in the 

 city jails are lifted above such necessity or practice when 

 they undertake the garden work. Better ways of gaining a 

 livelihood are taught through gardening. Petty thieving is 

 reduced. Begging is less common. There is always mischief 

 for idle hands to do." A poor family when provided with a 

 good garden will always be employed in a form of labor which 

 is elevating and inspiring. This has not the pauperizing 

 effect of Charity, but encourages self-respect, self-dependence, 

 better living, improved health, education and happinesk' ^;. 



The school garden is' welcomed eagerly by the teachers TO 

 " special " classes — especially for the mentally and, rabrali^ 

 deficient. This work furnishes the finest kind of m4nt^"' 

 training, and has the ^.dvantage of being out-of-doq];s." Scho^ 

 gardens have reformed'matiy a chronic truant. When the' callS 

 of the fields came to the city urchin he formerly, ran, j4way. 

 Now, if he lives near a school garden, he answers the calT there. 



A Permanent Occupation. — Superintendents and others 

 conducting the vacant lot garden work have observed many 

 instances where gardening has become a permanent occupation 

 as the result of a meager beginning. Many have moved to tlie 

 suburbs or country to obtain larger tracts or small farms on 

 which to follow gardening or other forms of agriculture (Kg. 

 11). They have become qualified to make a good living from 

 an occupation which was before strange to them. 



Instances are shown of persons whose condition of health 

 was such as to make it impossible for them to continue with 

 factory or other in-door employment, who made a good liveli- 

 hood from gardening. 



