A HINT TO CHARITABLE AID BOARDS.

Southern Cross, Volume 5, Issue 36, 11 December 1897, Page 3

A HINT TO CHARITABLE AID BOARDS.

The first summer’s trial of « Pingree’s potato patch ” in Chicago has proved a success. Forty acres of vacant land in the vicinity of Englewood have been, under the supervision of the farm committee of the Bureau of Charities, utilised by the very poor of that locality for the raising of vegetables, the soil being prepared and seed furnished by the committee. The persons thus helped number about nine hundred, those of American birth beading the list. Crop returns have exceeded expectations, and the money expenditure has been about two dollars for each “ farm.” The good accomplished, however, can not be estimated in money value. To say nothing of the moral influence of the work, the families helped are all from those who have been constant recipients of assistance from charities. They have lived through the summer without other aid gardens, and have, in most cases, enough vegetables to carry them well through the winter. The committee will secure more land as soon as possible, and it is believed the enterprise can very soon be made self-supporting. The testimony of the twenty-two other cities which have tried the Pingree scheme is, so far as heard from, quite as satisfactory, and it is to be hoped that this very common-sense plan for relieving the poor will be adopted by every city which is wrestling with the problem of unemployed labour.