In this book, necessarily, we have to take much upon the reports of
others, checking them by our own judgment and experience. The
startling accounts of what has been done and is being done on plots
of about a quarter acre to each family, however, can be easily
re-verified by any one who will go or write to Philadelphia, or
examine any present experiment or model gardens. These show what can
be done even by unskilled labor, with hardly any capital, on small
plots where the soil was poor, but which are well situated.

The directors say: "The first Vacant Lot Cultivation Associations
were organized when relief agencies were vainly striving to provide
adequate assistance for the host of unemployed. The cultivation of
vacant city lots by the unemployed had already been tried
successfully in other cities. The first year we provided gardens,
seeds, tools, and instruction only, for about one hundred families
on twenty-seven acres of ground. At a total cost to contributors of
about $1800, our gardeners produced $46,000 worth of crops."

The applicant is allowed a garden on the sole condition that he
cultivate it well through the season, and that he do not trespass
upon his neighbors. He must respect their right to what their labor
produces. A failure to observe these rules forfeits his privilege.

During twenty years, more than eight thousand families have been
assisted, many old people who could no longer keep up the rapid pace
of our industrial life, cripples whose physical condition held them
back in the race for work, persons who on account of sickness or
other misfortunes have been thrown out of the competition in modern
business, and unfortunate beings who, though clear in mind and