62 JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



be worthy of a moment's consideration. Instead of placing money at the 

 disposal of deserving people who are unable to provide sufficiently for their 

 wants during the regular working hours at the bench or in the store, 

 there has sprung up in the cities mentioned a popular movement which 

 has as its object to place at the disposal of such deserving people as are 

 willing to take advantage of an opportunity to improve their home con- 

 ditions, small plots of land which are ploughed, harrowed, and enriched, 

 upon which they can grow vegetables with which to supply their own 

 tables. This is based upon the principle that the best way to assist a man 

 is to help him help himself. By this means people who are too proud to 

 ask aid from the regular charity organisations are reached without being 

 humiliated. People who need physical exercise in the open air are assisted 

 and benefited. The self-respect for those who are engaged in the work of 

 producing the necessities of life is impressed on those who, as a rule, are 

 most prone to ridicule it. The work in every instance has proved of very 

 decided commercial value to those engaging in it, in the way of adding to 

 their income by furnishing a part of the supply for the household. It has 

 this other great advantage, that the products coming from these areas are 

 fresh, wholesome, and palatable, and this carries with it a new appreciation 

 for garden products which is only realised by those in the condition of 

 the persons usually reached by such a movement. Instead of the table 

 being supplied with stale fragments which can be purchased at small cost 

 in the market place, they are supplied with fresh, wholesome, crisp pro- 

 ducts direct from the garden, which in itself is sufficient to place the 

 recipients upon a better physical basis, even if it did not stimulate an 

 interest in rural pursuits ; but in many instances persons who have been 

 aided in this way, and whose attention was first directed to the possibilities 

 of gardening through the agency of the charity workers, have become 

 enthusiastic and successful commercial gardeners. Many months, and 

 even years, have been added to the lives of numerous individuals by 

 keeping them outdoors and by directing their efforts into new channels. 

 Persons who if they had to continue work at the bench or counter for 

 any considerable period would have entirely lost their health have been 

 restored and invigorated by change of occupation from indoor to outdoor 

 life. 



Such movements, I realise, are not exactly in line with what might be 

 expected to be mentioned in a horticultural lecture. They are not the 

 records of the changes which have taken place in the popular demand for 

 varieties of roses, chrysanthemums, radishes, or gooseberries. They are, 

 however, a record of some of the great movements which are taking place 

 in the United States at the present time, which will in the future and 

 • which are at the present time making a decided effect upon the horti- 

 cultural tendency of the country. • Popular education along rural lines is 

 having a wonderful effect in this country. The mass of information 

 which has been collected and made available through the work of the 

 experiment stations and colleges of America is now being co-ordinated 

 and applied to the economic conditions of those whose financial 

 welfare depends upon the cultivation of the soil. This work is, I realise, 

 a work of education. It is much easier now than it was ten years ago, 

 because the agencies which have been working through the above-named 



