The American Garden. 



m. x/i. 



OCTOBER, i8cji. 



No. lo. 



THE WOLF AND THE GARDEN. 



HE want of strength and the constant state of "half-health" that is characteristic 

 of the very poor, springs from " half living." The wolf is too much around the 

 tenement house door in our great cities. The working girl is often anamic ; 

 bread, weak tea and canned goods keep her constantly just under " concert pitch. 

 She needs more nutritious food, more fruit and more vegetables. When sickness 

 comes she cannot stand it, and pays for poor living by not living at all. The 

 pity of poverty in cities is the dreadful shortness of human lives. They die too 

 soon — particularly the children. Stale food — not enough food — and the Potter's 

 field follows quickly ! 



Not long ago a lady, on charitable thoughts intent, visited a poor family in a 

 manufacturing village, and in her Dorcas basket carried ripe tomatoes and sweet 



HOW THE OTHERS "HALF LIVE." 



corn fresh from her own bountiful garden. She had thought that the family might be glad for a little 

 help in this way. She was surprised to find, on reaching the house, that in the back yard grew as fine 

 corn and tomatoes as in her own garden. Poor as the family might be, they did not suffer for food. The 

 garden was full of it. The family had practically lived on it for several weeks, and would do so for 

 many weeks to come. The woman, with remarkable tact, accepted the gift with pleasure, and praised the 

 appearance of the tomatoes by saying they were better than any in her own patch. 



The lady then investigated the homes of the poorer people in the neighborhood, and found that there 

 was really not one person in the place suffering for food. Every home had a garden, and these gardens 

 helped to keep the wolf away. She gave away no more vegetables, for the reason that not a soul in the 

 place wanted any — every family had their own and to spare. Further search in another part of the town 

 showed a population living actually in a country place in flats. Here there was real poverty. Here an- 

 aemic faces were painfully plenty. Here the factory girl lived, like her city sister, on bread, tea, stale 

 vegetables, ham and sausage. The flats covered all the ground. The sweet and generous earth was 

 murdered to satisfy a landlord greedy for rents. 



The garden is the poor man's staff. Amateur gardeners may wail over the cost of their gardens 

 and may repeat the old story of the milk that cost more than champagne, but the little patch in the poor 

 man's yard is a sure ban against the wolf. The generous earth, fed by fertilizers that are produced on 

 the place, cared for in hours otherwise idle, does pay, because it returns a profit directly to the poor 

 man's table. There is no semi-starvation when the home is backed (literally "backed'') by a garden. 



It is said that the European peasant laborer, on reaching a rural town in the United States, spends 

 the first month in eating and sleeping. The generous living of this country is such a surprise to his poor 

 stomach that it seems as if he could not eat enough, as if he never slept so well. After a while he gets 

 accustomed to white bread and butter, the abounding fruit and the variety of vegetables. If he stays in 

 the big cities, America is to him only another poverty-fed Europe. 



There is really no absolute poverty in this country outside the cities. Every house has a garden. 

 The wolf may howl about the country home, but he cannot leap over the garden wall ! 



