Three Acres and Liberty. Bolton Hall
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was accepted. In a few days the stones and bricks had been thrown into the holes and covered with dirt. The low places had been filled in. It was a work in which the whole family joined. A small house was rented in the immediate neighborhood in lieu of their one room near the foul alleys of the city slum.
Every inch of the soil was utilized. A rosy hue took the place of the pale, wan cheek of a few months before. And now the harvest has come, and the winter's store can be enumerated. Thirty bushels of potatoes, four bushels of turnips, one bushel of carrots, thirty gallons of sauerkraut, fifteen gallons of catsup, five gallons of pickled beans, one hundred quarts of canned tomatoes, fifty quarts of canned corn, twenty quarts of beans, one thousand or more fine celery stalks, and many other things. Warm clothing has replaced the badly worn garments of nine months ago. A few pieces of furniture have been added. The boy has been provided with a small capital for his little business. ("Vacant Lot Cultivation," Reprint from N. Y. Charities Review.) Better labor would of course get even better results.
The personal benefits that have come to a few individual cases, are largely the same that all the gardeners enjoyed in New York and elsewhere.
An old colored woman—a grandmother—who had just been released from one of the hospitals where she had been treated for a long time for pleurisy, asked for a garden. It was more than a mile to the nearest plot, but she was quite willing to go even that distance if she could get a garden. At first, owing to her weakened condition, she was forced to work slowly and for short periods only, but a little assistance enabled her to get a garden started. The work proceeded so well that more land was added to her small holding, and most of her waking hours were now spent either in or near the garden, working among the tender plants or watching them grow. Before the season was half spent she had developed one of the best gardens in the whole plot. Her surplus produce became so large that she had to devote most of her time to gathering and selling it. Finally she rented a small shed on a prominent street and passers-by often stopped, and regular customers came to buy the freshly gathered produce, the supply being not only abundant, but of great variety.
One of the best gardens, from the standpoint of value of produce as well as for the varieties of products it contained and the artistic arrangement, was worked by a man who had but one arm. Many other successful and profitable gardens were cultivated by men and women of an age when we generally expect them to depend entirely upon others for support.
Many incidents were found where such habits as drinking and loafing around saloons and clubs and abusing the family have been checked on account of the gardener's time and attention being occupied in the little farm.
One of the workers came for work in a condition of mind and body which rendered his services almost worthless. He was scarcely able to carry on his work for a minute beyond what he was shown. Each new move had to be explained constantly, and even then he was often found doing the work in the wrong way only a few minutes afterwards. Before long, however, he began to see that his place had its responsibilities and that the work of Mother Nature depended on his doing his part and doing it well. By the time the crops were ready to gather and market he came to realize that the cost of production must come under the amount received from the sale of the produce so as to prevent loss. By the end of the season he had learned so to utilize his time and to organize his work and execute our plans that we were able to recommend him to a farmer who was looking for a handy man about the place.
In twenty years our Associations have made demonstrations of the following facts, each demonstration proving more clearly than the former ones:
First. That many people out of employment must have help of some kind.
Second. That a great majority of them prefer self-help, and many will take no other. Nearly all are able and willing to improve any opportunities open to them.
Third. That to open opportunities to them does not pauperize or degrade, but has the opposite effect of elevating and ennobling. It quickly establishes self-respect and self-confidence. The best and most effective way of helping people in need is to open a way whereby they may help themselves. The most effective charity is opportunity accompanied with kindly advice and a personal interest in those less fortunate than ourselves.
Fourth. That the offering of gardens to the unemployed with proper supervision and some assistance by providing seeds, fertilizers, and plowing accompanied with instruction, is the cheapest and easiest way of opening opportunities yet devised.
Fifth. That it possesses many advantages in addition to providing profitable employment; among others, that the worker must come out into the open air and sunshine; must exercise, and put forth exertion—all of which are conducive to health, and, most important of all, he knows that all he raises is to be his own. This is the greatest incentive to industry.
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