YOUTHFUL MARKET GARDENERS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3048, 9 April 1917, Page 8

YOUTHFUL MARKET GARDENERS

WAR WORK FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL BOYS. The British Army Canteen Committee recently hit on a good notion for increasing the supply of potatoes and other vegetables for the Army. It is a scheme for enlistinc the boys at bis public schools as market, gardeners. The idea is that each bis school should become responsible for'cultivating a piece of land, either in the school grounds or land near by. The management is to be in the hands of a local committee, appointed by the headmaster, and the actual work will bo under the supervision of an experienced farmer in each case. The capital outlay can be provided by the school itself, or it will be supplied under certain conditions by the authorities. The important point is that no piece of land can he cultivated: under, this scheme until it lias been examined and passed as good for the- purpose by an inspector from the ■Board of Agriculture, so that we shall not see round the public schools wasteful experiments such as we have hoard of in London. The minimum acreage will be five acres. A start has been made at Rugby, where about eight acres of the playing fields ,are to be ploughed up to begin • with, and also at Clifton with ten acres, The idea is capable of very great.expansion, and it is hoped that before, long most of the important public schools will have taken it up. If the time spent on market gardening is taken out of study-time it will certainly be popular with the average boy, who will learn in the open air what will probably be as useful to him in after .life as anything- ho might be learning at the desk. Where a start has been made the boys- are proving very keen gardeners. Perhaps we shall see before long the famous playing fields' at Eton, where the Battle of Waterloo was won, helping to win the Battle of Europe. , .