THE PATRIOTIC GARDEN 



FOOD FOB THE 



He also Fighls w/io 



AND 1 SAVE 1 SUGAi^ 



KITCHEN DQDR, 



helps a Fighter Fight 



Gardening for Re-Educating Disabled Soldiers 



GARRARD HARRIS 



Federal Board of 

 Vocational Training 



Curative Value of the Work Amply Demonstrated in European Hospitals and Reconstruction Centres — Plans Comprehensive 



Developing for Over Here 





CERTAINLY, gardening in all its var- 

 ious affiliated branches is coming 

 more prominently forward for em- 

 phasis and public attention. The 

 result is bound to be a better appreciation on the 

 part of the public of the great advantage a knowl- 

 edge and practice of these things hold for the 

 average man or woman. Greatly stimulated 

 interest in gardening, from economic and health 

 standpoints will be the logical outcome. 



The United States Government has committed 

 itself to the duty of reeducating vocationally, 

 all men of the army and navy who may become 

 so disabled that they cannot return to their 

 former method of making a living. This work 

 has been placed by Congress and the President 

 in the hands of the Federal 

 Board for Vocational Edu- 

 cation. The law providing 

 for this vocational rehabili- 

 tation was only signed by 

 the President June 27, 1918, 

 but the Federal Board had 

 anticipated it somewhat, 

 and was ready to at once 

 take on the work and pro- 

 ceed with it; and it is now 

 actually under way. 



According to the figures 

 from all belligerents, based 

 upon more than three years 

 of warfare under all the 

 varying conditions, there 

 will be an average of ten 

 thousand men for every 

 million enlisted who will 

 annually be subjects for 

 vocational reeducation; or 

 something like 25,000 men 

 each year on the present 

 basis of enlistments. This 

 does not include all men 

 who are seriously wounded, 

 by any means. The ma- 

 jority of them are able to 

 return to their former voca- 

 tions, although sodisabled as 

 not to be available for fur- 

 ther military service. It is 



only the man who is rendered incapable of resum- 

 ing the work he was engaged in prior to his entering 

 the army who is the subject of free reeducation, 

 pay while in training, and family allowances 

 continued during the same period. The figures 

 of the men to be retrained hold up to the average 

 of ten thousand for each million men. If we 

 have an enlistment of five million, it will mean 

 fifty thousand annually to be vocationally re- 

 educated, and garden work is seen in a very 

 favorable light, not alone because of itself but 

 because of the remarkable therapeutic value in 



rebuilding the mental side. Experience of other 

 countries has shown that of all the matters taugh t 

 the students of gardening and field work have 

 made the most rapid recoveries. 



Figures show again that, contrary to the 

 general idea, the dismembered man, or the man 

 who has lost a limb, is in the vast minority 

 among the war disabled. Out of the ten thou- 

 sand men per million who are subjects for retrain- 

 ing — that is, so badly injured that they needs 

 must be provided with a new means of making 

 a livelihood compatable with their remaining 

 capabilities, only five hundred will be "dis- 

 membered" cases! Of this number, approx- 

 imately three hundred will have lost a leg or legs, 

 and two hundred an arm or arms. The per- 



Class in market gardening at the Guelph, Ontario, 



Agricultural College, where soldiers' re-education work is already 

 in operation 



centage of blind is surprisingly small. Out of 

 41,000 Canadian soldiers invalided home, there 

 were less than forty cases of blindness. 



In 341,025 pension cases coming before the 

 British Ministry up to May 1st, 1918, II.60 

 per cent. — the largest of all percentages — were 

 of cases of chest complaints and tuberculosis. 

 There was 10.3 per cent, of heart disease, 2.0 

 of deafness, and 6.0 of shell-shock and nervous 

 diseases, a total of 30.63 per cent, of the total 

 of injuries. In all of these cases, gardening, 

 flower raising, bulb growing, and like outdoor 



4.5 



occupations are peculiarly applicable. It will 

 be noted that amputation cases are not included 

 in this list. It is thought that other and more 

 highly specialized occupations would probably 

 be better adapted to the majority of the amputa- 

 tion cases: but for the men with such injuries 

 as require the maximum of fresh air, moderate 

 exercise, quiet, and yet something of absorbing 

 interest, gardening in its broad sense is the hap- 

 piest solution of their physical and occupational 

 limitations. 



So, in the United States there will not be a 

 phase of it that will not be available for these 

 injured men to study and be trained for. It is 

 thought that many of the former farmers and 

 agricultural workers without special knowledge, 

 will be easily trained into 

 becoming specialists in hor- 

 ticulture and its various 

 ramifications. 



The value of gardening as 

 a curative means is attested 

 by Dr. Bergonie of the 

 French reeducational forces, 

 who, in reporting on the re- 

 sults achieved at the hos- 

 pital at Grand Lebrun, near 

 Bordeaux, a physiotherapy 

 centre, in contrast with the 

 work at Martillac, where 

 the men follow prescribed 

 exercises in the fields and 

 gardens, says: 



"We were able to prove 

 how far the agricultural 

 remedy was superior in 

 percentage of cures, as well 

 as in rapidity and thorough- 

 ness, to mechanotherapy, 

 and even to all physio- 

 therapy carried on indoors 

 at the Grand Lebrun hos- 

 pital." The work is safe, 

 the report goes on to say: 

 there is a steady improve- 

 ment, there are no backsets 

 or accidents, and 80 per 

 cent, of the men after agri- 

 cultural treatment are cured 

 and able to return to the service. Only 10 per 

 cent, show an improvement insufficient to return 

 (these are the reeducation cases for permanent 

 vocation) and from 3 to 5 per cent, remaining in 

 an unchanged condition. 



As a curative media, gardening has its place 

 of high importance fixed and defined. As a 

 calling for those who, by reason of their dis- 

 abilities, are compelled to change the form of 

 their civil occupation, it presents advantages 

 held by nothing else. These facts are recognized : 

 and gardening, in its various avenues into spec- 



