Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1914 — HOME TOWN HELPS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME TOWN HELPS

AVOID ALL WASTE OF GROUND Italian Gardener* Utilize Space Which Americans Would Consider of Little Account ~ Just outside the railway station at Springfield, Mass., is a row of tenement houses occupied by Italian families. Between them and the tracks is a garden, divided into long,- narrow strips, each strip being tilled by one of the families. In the early morning and evening laborers from the factories may be seen busily at work in these small patches, some of which are not more than ten feet wide. In the daytime the women and children are busy In' them. These Italians raise enough vegetables for their own tables and have a supply left for sale. It is intensive gardening. Not an inch of ground is wasted. Connecticult, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have thousands of such patches and thousands of abandoned farms have been taken up and made highly profitable by these expert gardeners from Italy. They do it by wasting nothing. The refuse from their homes is returned to the earth, as nature Intended that it should be. Chickens and pigs are made to fertilize unbroken ground, and the pigs root up underbrush and loosen stones. The simplest of implements are used, but the Italian gardeners know that constant attention Is the secret of success. Never a weed Is allowed to spring up; the soil is not allowed to go without hoeing and raking. The fence is a support for tomato, bean, pea and other climbing plants. On an area smaller than that of the ordinary city backyard an Italian will grow vegetables enough to supply his table the year around.