In a small plot the character of the soil is of little consequence.  We hear of one garden in New York City on the roof of a big building where the janitor smuggled up the needed soil in baskets.

The school gardens in New York City, some in a space as small as a hearth rug, one yard by two, show how to use a very small patch of land to the best advantage.  Nor need it take more time than you can afford.

“Some of the cultivators of city lots on Long Island who kept count of the number of days they worked, show the surprising conclusion that they earned, not farm wages (seventy-five cents a day with board and lodging for the worker), but mechanics’ wages (four dollars per day) for every working day; as, for instance, a stone-cutter, assisted by his two boys, worked fifty hours and made $120.23.” ("Cultivation of Vacant Lots, New York,” page 12); and four city lots is a very little farm.

But though one may not own even a little farm, almost any one who wants to can have a home garden—­it needs but a small plot of land.  Nor need we be discouraged because acquaintances who play at gardening tell us that their vegetables cost them more than if they bought them.

They naturally would, with thoughtless methods of cultivation, with the selection of crops and the purchase of seeds left to an uneducated man who does all his work the way he saw his grandfather do it.

Nor are we to be discouraged even by the “gentleman farmer” who runs a model farm, a model of how not to do it, for, notwithstanding its large capital, it seldom pays.

I am passing such a farm now as I write in the train—­it is surrounded by a cut stone wall.  Do you suppose the owner business would pay if it were run in the same way that his farm is run?  We know the story of the white sparrow to find which would bring luck to the farm—­but it was out only at daybreak; the farmer got up each morning to find the sparrow and found a lot of other things to attend to, which did bring luck to the farm.  I don’t think the owner of that wall worked at it, at daybreak.

The time is not far distant when the builders of homes in our American cities will be compelled to leave room for a garden, in order to meet the requirements of the people In the mad rush for wealth we have overlooked the natural state, but we see a healthy reaction setting in.  With the improvements in steam and electricity, the revolutionizing of transportation, the cutting of the arbitrary telephone charges, it is becoming possible to live at a distance from our business.  May we not expect in the near future to see one portion of our cities devoted entirely to business, with the homes of the people so separated as to give light, sunshine, and air to all, besides a piece of ground for a garden sufficient to supply the table with vegetables?

You raise more than vegetables in your garden:  you raise your expectation of life.

Life belongs in the garden.  Do you remember—­the first chapters of Genesis show us our babyhood in a garden—­the garden that all babyhood remembers, and the last chapter of the Apocalypse leaves us with the vision of the garden in the Holy City, on either side of the river, where the trees yield their fruits every month and bear leaves of universal healing.  Just so will it be in our holy cities of the future—­the garden will be right there “in the midst.”