[Under this heading 

 The Garden Maga- 

 zine willgive its readers 

 every month a brief ac- 

 count of '"what's doing" 

 in the varied and highly 

 interesting group activ- 

 ities in garden and farm-work, stimulated, or 

 brought into being by the emergency of war and 

 a threatened food shortage. Giving out food 

 for the household is the age-old duty of women. 

 That to-day, this duty involves producing the 

 food as well, makes no difference in the zeal 

 for the task. The American woman is meeting 

 the situation splendidly, with courage and 

 intelligence and devotion.} 



MARY, get your hoe, get your hoe" 

 sung to the catching tune of "Over 

 There" is a sort of slogan of the 

 California school girls. In fact the 

 California women are so hard at work a-gar- 

 dening that one can feel the infection of their 

 zeal over here in the slower and more conser- 

 vative East. 



The gardening is on all scales from that of 

 Mrs. Mansfeldt of San Francisco who has 

 ripped the geraniums from her studio window 

 boxes and planted instead humble radishes 

 and onions and carrots, thus setting a fashion 

 in window-boxes which has been taken up not 

 only in San Francisco, but in Cherry Street, 

 New York, to the fine organization of the 

 Land Army work in California under the 

 capable leadership of Mrs. Myrtle Shepard 

 Francis. Mrs. Francis is no amateur, but 

 the president of a large and successful seed- 

 growing firm of Ventura, and so when she 

 began touring the state and promising to 

 meet the labor shortage — serious and in 

 many cases disastrous, last season, the farmers 

 and fruit-growers listened with respect. In- 

 stead of the distrust with which many Eastern 

 farmers met the idea of women workers, the 



fruit-growers of California were charmed. 



* * * 



California, last year, had a demonstration 

 of the sincerity of purpose and the value of 

 women's work. When the labor shortage sorely 

 threatened the existence of the cooperative 

 cannery at Hemet, the Women's Club of the 

 little city went in a body to the rescue, toiled 

 faithfully at the unaccustomed work and 

 saved the fruit crop of the valley. Southern 

 California believes strongly in the competence 

 of woman's labor and 1,500 workers are wanted 

 on the Southern California fruit farms. 

 Assured of labor in harvesting, California 

 farmers are enlarging their plans, and thous- 

 ands of acres which otherwise would remain 



untitled have been put under cultivation. 



* * * 



An extremely promising Training Farm 

 at Libertyville, Illinois, is the chief under- 

 taking of the Illinois Branch of the Woman's 

 Land Army of America. The use of 200 acres, 

 rent free, was the gift of Mr. W. V. B. Ames. 

 The Training Farm offers to 40 women a 

 thorough course in diversified farming under 

 excellent instruction. Although many girls 

 can be found for short time labor, the lack 

 of thoroughly trained women farmers is seri- 

 ous, and the time and money spent in 

 training these women will be an insurance of 

 thorough work to come. Each one will be 

 equipped theoretically, thoroughly, and practi- 

 cally to organize and train a woman's farm 

 unit next summer. Enrollment requirements 

 are — (1) Promise to use training for the pa- 

 triotic aims of the organization, (2) en- 

 rollment until the end of October, (3) rigid 

 physical examination, (4) two weeks proba- 

 tionary period. 



The Chairman is Mrs. Tiffany Blake. The 



UNCLE SAM'S GARDENING 



Chicago address is Room 608, 112 West Adams; 

 and the farm address, Libertyville, Illinois. 



* * * 



The National Headquarters of the Woman's 

 Land Army has moved from 32 Fifth Avenue 

 to 19 West 44th Street. Here one should 

 send for pamphlets, for information on organ- 

 ization, and the like. The Units vary in 

 size from four or six to seventy, and are com- 

 posed of untrained women, willing and physic- 

 ally able to work. A chaperon housekeeper ac- 

 companies the Unit, and the girls are paid by 

 the day or by the piece. The matter of food 

 and lodging is arranged for by the Unit; where 

 necessary, a Captain — a trained woman super- 

 visor — is in charge. This is the plan, now 

 very familiar, which last summer was proved 

 practical and farmers who last summer em- 

 ployed the women Units are glad to have such 

 help this summer. Last summer the largest 

 New York unit was the now famous Mt. 

 Kisco Unit. The Women's Agricultural 

 Camp at Bedford, N. Y., as it is more properly 

 called, is under the direction of Dean Ogilvie 

 of Barnard. It was founded by Mrs. Charles 

 W. Short, Jr. Inquiries about its work should 

 be sent to Dean Ida O. Ogilvie, Bedford, N. Y. 



Athough men workers view with alarm and 

 dislike the entrance of women into industries 

 hitherto sacred to men, fearing, perhaps rea- 

 sonably, that it will mean a lowering of wage 

 standard and a possible loss of jobs, they have 

 no such feeling about the farm labour. The 

 Woman's Land Army may enlist all the re- 

 cruits it likes, and the vanishing race of Hired 

 Man will only give them its blessing. He 

 seems to feel no more jealousy and animosity 

 here than women would feel should men sud- 

 denly, from patriotic motives, turn to general 

 housework, and organize squads to do house- 

 work by blocks. The theory of the Land Army 

 since food production is the end, is that it is 

 more practical to supply labor to the farmer 

 who needs it and who knows how to farm than 

 to start farming experiments with untried work- 

 ers on new land. Hence the Units are placed 

 at the disposal of any farmers who need them. 



New York units are at Southold, Bridge- 

 hampton, and Westbury, Cold Spring Harbor, 

 Port Washington, Rockville Centre, and St. 

 James — all Long Island, and the Bedford 

 Unit at Mr. Kisco. Jersey Units are at 

 Short Hills, Spring Lake, and Summit, where 

 The Union County Farm Camp has just been 

 formed. Camp Director, Miss Mabel Benton; 

 Miss Beatrice Malcolm of Summit is in charge 

 of the motor corps. 



* * % 



Extremely competent work for individual 

 gardens is being done by the Philadelphia 

 Society of Little Gardens — done with the 

 clear-headedness and definiteness character- 

 istic of that excellently managed organiza- 

 tion. It has new branches in many states 

 and has undertaken the work of replanting 

 the orchards around Villequier-Aument, 

 France. Other Garden Associations should 

 take notice of the Committee for the Col- 

 lection and Distribution of Surplus Produce, 

 which offers picking, free of charge, surplus 

 fruit and vegetables along the Main Line. 

 Mrs. Andrew Wright Crawford, Bryn Mawr, 

 Pa., is Chairman of this Committee. Mrs. 

 Cornelius Stevenson is the president of the 

 Association and the Secretary is Mrs. Charles 

 Davis Clark, 2215 Spruce Street, Philadelphia. 



233 



It would be hard 

 to find a better organ- 

 ized community than 

 that of the Borough of 

 Queens, under the 

 leadership of Mrs. 

 John W. Paris of 

 Flushing, nor better work than that done by 

 the Queens Borough War Garden League. 

 Their methods have been very direct, and 

 beautifully free from red tape or over-organi- 

 zation. An advertisement in the local papers 

 brought next day a hundred offers of unused 

 land, another advertisement brought more 

 than 500 requests for the use of land for gar- 

 dening. The League made arrangements to 

 have plowing done for whoever needed it. 

 Committees were organized at Far Rockaway, 

 Rockaway Beach, Ridgewood, Elmhurst, 

 Jamaica, and Flushing, the chief business of 

 the Committee being to see that the individual 

 garden enterprises don't go wrong. Any one 

 ! who wants to make a garden, whether it is a 

 lone enthusiast or 200 girls from the Washing- 

 ton Irving High School, asks Mrs. Paris to find 

 the garden. The office of the League is in the 

 Park Commissioner's Office, Forest Hills, 

 Queens Borough, N. Y. The Park Commis- 

 sioner, Albert Benninger, has set a notable 

 example and we trust that other Park Com- 

 missioners will follow in his train. He set the 

 Park greenhouses to work and had ready a 

 million vegetable plants which home gardeners 

 could have for the asking. He has also 2 

 acres of castor oil bean for the Government. 

 * * * 



Aside from this work, the Queensboro 

 War Garden League has had time to set 

 another example and planted a huge "per- 

 ennial Christmas tree," so that hereafter 

 every year the community tree may be decked 

 at Christmas time and greet the spring none 

 the worse for its joyous experience instead of 

 the community each year demanding the 

 sacrifice of a beautiful spruce for the yearly 

 festival. This League is also supervising 

 three Girl Pioneer Gardens and has assisted 

 with the school gardens. 



* * * 



The number of young folk "who have gone 

 a-gardening for Uncle Sam is enormous. 

 In Utah between 16,000 and 18,000 boys and 

 girls are enrolled for farm work and this 

 enrollment is not exceptional, it's typical. 

 The Camp Fire Girls last year to the number of 

 70,448 made truck gardens; this year's figures 

 are not yet in, but there are many more. In 

 Chicago the Camp Fire Girls have for their 

 War Garden the ground comprised in half a 

 city block. One hundred Boy Scouts of 

 Phoenix, Arizona, have engaged a farm of 25 

 acres at Wheatfields, some 14 miles from Globe, 

 and a regular summer camp will be set up 



this month. 



* * * 



A. L. Spencer has been making a missionary 

 tour from Los Angeles to Minnesota urging 

 business men who were raised on farms to 

 return to the farm, to side-track or deputize 

 their other business and take farms of 150 

 acres or more and run them for the duration 



of the war. 



* * # 



One of the chief points to be cared for 

 now, is that none of this enthusiastic garden- 

 work be wasted, that Garden Clubs cooperate 

 with consumers' leagues, that markets be 

 established where perishable food stuffs may 

 be sold at a fair price. If marketing is not 

 practical, then easily, stored root-crops should 

 be planted, arrangements made and counsel 

 taken against the need of winter. 



Frances Duncan 



