CHAPTER XI 
WAR GARDENS AS CITY ASSETS 
A Thing of Beauty Is a Joy Forever 
E VERY city aims to be as prosperous and progres- 
sive as possible and nowadays most people realize 
that the city beautiful is also likely to be the 
city commercially worth while. Probably no other 
one enterprise will add more to a city’s beauty than 
gardening. Gardening, therefore, has double value. 
It both enriches and beautifies. By the same token 
it develops civic pride and community spirit. 
For these reasons any community should delight in 
being called a “garden city,” whether the name is 
applied literally or merely in a figurative sense. One 
result of the war-garden movement is that practically 
any American community can truthfully be designated 
by this term. 
It is fortunate indeed that this is true. Unity of 
thought, of action, of ideals, is the crying need of the 
hour in America. United, we stand; divided, we fall. 
Probably nothing is more potent as a factor for build- 
ing up community spirit than gardening, particularly 
community gardening. A link to bind men together is 
gardening. It creates common interests. It unites all 
hands in the common end of producing food. Rubbing 
elbows in their garden patches, lawyers and laborers, 
tradesmen and housewives, speedily discover that they 
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