training on vacant lots and who now have good positions on truck farms near the city.

To persons absolutely needing immediate help-consumptives and others out of employment-work is given during the season at the co-operative farm. This farm was started six years ago. Last year more than one hundred persons were given employment and paid at the rate of $1.50 a day. When the crops on this farm were matured the Association sold them to repay its treasury for the amount paid the workers.

Fancy gardening has also been tried by embryo farmers in public school gardens, and a heavy crop of tobacco, peanuts, watermelons, flax, sweet potatoes and other Southern luxuries is on the way. In the eight gardens maintained by the Philadelphia Board of Education which are the outgrowth of vacant lot gardening in Philadelphia one thousand farmers are weeding, hoeing and spraying their plants with insect destroyer and fertilizer, giving them the daily care bestowed by real agriculturists. In addition to growing these products, teachers are instructing the amateur workers in

commercial values, giving object lessons. to accompany the farming lessons.

Besides the individual gardens tended by one thousand children, there are class plots which give work to six thousand little ones, and there are many kindergarten beds where four-year-olds work with hoe and rake.

A striking example of the possibilities of this work for even the weak and inexperienced is given in the case of a little mother and her three children, who worked a garden several seasons. This little family who were existing as best they could without the husband and father, were having a difficult time to get life's necessities. The mother became quite ill and was unable to attend to her work. She was assigned a garden-a plot a little less than one-fourth of an acre. She was totally inexperienced and the many mistakes she and the children made in planting their crops and cultivating them, in the absence of the superintendent, would have been humorous if the struggle for existence had not been so serious. However, the mother and the children working together were enabled to get considerable food for themselves

and a little surplus to sell; then they received instruction and experience, which proved of great value the following season. At the end of the second season, when they were assigned enough additional land to bring their holding up to about one-third of an acre, they reported that they had had a supply of fresh vegetables for themselves during the summer, and that they had put up for winter use twelve bushels of potatoes, fifteen quart jars of tomatoes, seven quart jars of beets, ten quart jars of string beans, eight quart jars of lima beans, six quart jars of corn and six quart jars of peas, and had sold to their neighbors $112.09 worth of product.

Many of the gardeners, after a few years' experience, become quite expert. The old colored man in the illustration reported crops last season to the value of about $250.00 from the half acre he cultivated. His main crop was celery, from which he got about $70. He had sold a

successful crop of peas from that same portion of the land before he put the celery in it.

One man, who was allowed to do some of this preparatory work was about to be put out of his home and his goods sold. The superintendent arranged with the constable to postpone the sale until the man was able to earn a little. Afterwards, this man applied for and was assigned one of the family gardens. He was enabled to keep his family together, and himself in good condition until he secured his old work, later in the year.

Striking examples are often witnessed of the way many families appreciate the opportunity to work in the gardens, and of the way these people sympathize with each other. A number of gardeners who had cultivated land for several seasons and had received great help from them, came to the superintendent and asked to surrender their plots that these might be given to others who were in greater need

than they at the time. One family who had worked their garden well for several years and by its aid had been able to get an upward start, told the superintendent that they fully realized what it had meant to them the last few seasons, but they also realized that some of the families they knew in the neighborhood were in much more need than they, so they asked him to give the gardens to the other families.

In addition to the large number of men and women of middle age, or under, who aided their families by working the gardens, many old people cultivated them, in one year the oldest woman being seventy, and the oldest man eighty-four. The woman of seventy had no one to depend on but herself. She had worked the garden for several seasons, raising her supply of good food, and selling her surplus for cash to go towards the rental of the little room where she lived.

Many invalids and cripples also find a source of benefit in the gardens. A dentist, forty-one years of age, who on account of physical breakdown, was compelled to cease practicing in his profession, and was reduced to very humble circumstances, was assigned a garden. He spent the summer on it endeavoring to regain his health and secure the products to aid in the support of his family. A crippled house painter applied for a garden and tried to work it with the assistance of his wife; he was later taken seriously ill and for a long time the family had nothing upon which to depend except the produce his wife could bring from the garden.

A man about seventy years of age, who suffered from an incurable affliction, worked a garden for the support of his wife and seven children. His garden was located on poor land which had not been worked before, but so constant were his efforts in fertilizing and cultivating it, that the results were among the best. From time to time in various locations,

there are many difficulties to overcome and local problems to solve. The gardeners are encouraged to do as much as possible themselves in the way of overcoming the difficulties; thus they become still more self-reliant and learn to work out their own salvation, instead of depending on others. One of the most common of the difficulties is the securing of an adequate water supply in dry weather. An accompanying illustration shows how a group of gardeners have arranged a water supply. Down through the trees bordering the farm, a small stream runs. But it would have been a tedious task to carry sufficient water from the stream to keep the crops on the inner gardens in good condition during dry spells. Therefore this group of gardeners erected a stone base and set on it a large keg near the stream. This keg was readily filled from the stream. A pipe line runs from the keg to a sunken barrel, located at some distance. In this way water is supplied to the inner garden with little trouble.

Among the many beneficent results of the noble efforts of this Association, a few only can be hinted at: Hundreds have found employment who would otherwise have been idle; land has been rescued from weeds and unsightly rubbish and made to fulfill the God-given mission of bringing forth fruits and flowers; in their labors, men and women have been made to feel that what they received was theirs by right of toil; old people, too infirm to work elsewhere, and invalids in need of recreation, have found health-giving employment; little children, who at best could hope only for "a country week," have found a glorious "country summer." They have been brought into close touch with nature and its charms. They have become filled with "a noble discontent" and have received inspiration, before unknown, to do, to be something above and beyond their old ways of living.

U

P north of the international boundary line something very like a revolution is in progress. And it is none the less revolutionary because it lacks the noise and fury which accompany the spinning of the squirrel cage far to the south. Very quietly and with a certain grim determination the people of Canada are moving steadily forward on new -and in some cases-startling lines. To the radical the Canadian policy of public ownership and control may serve as a hope and inspiration; to the conservative as a warning and a menace; but to every man of intelligence it must be a matter of keen interest.

Where in the United States there would be long and angry debate, hesitation, delay and general alarm, the Canadians plunge straight ahead with all the buoyancy and confidence of youth, upsetting traditions; hewing a new path through the wilderness they have re

claimed; too busy in doing to spend time in talk.

Putting into practical use many of the teachings of the socialist, they utterly deny any sympathy with socialism. Adopting, as do some of their largest cities, the single tax on land values, they declare they are no disciples of Henry George. Boasting themselves a pure democracy and recognizing the voice of the people as the supreme law, they swear willing allegiance to King George of England. And all these apparent inconsistencies only add to the compelling interest which must always attach to the spectacle of a new empire in the making.

Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, a thriving city of one hundred and fifty thousand people, nearly four hundred miles north of St. Paul, is one of the leaders in the new movement for making the government of more direct and general service to all the people. For years the city has owned and operated its

water works plant, street lighting system, municipal stone quarries andunique among the cities of America-an asphalt plant where the material for laying and repairing street pavements is produced. Now, taking another great step forward, Winnipeg is approaching the completion of a great hydro-electric power plant, publicly owned, and capable of producing a maximum of sixty thousand horse power, per year.

The plant is being built and will be completed next spring at Point Du Bois, sixty miles from the city, where the Winnipeg River drops over a fall of thirtythree feet. The city has purchased a right-of-way one hundred and fifty feet wide and sixty miles long leading direct to the plant. It has also purchased a quantity of land lying just outside the city limits, and at present undeveloped, which will be held for future sale to manufacturers at a cost not to exceed two hundred dollars an acre. This land is located where all railroad facilities are available and improvements leading to it are now under construction. For the purpose of securing funds for the building of the dam, power plant and transmission lines, forty year city bonds were issued, finding a market in

London, to the amount of $3,250,000.

The object of building the great power plant is to provide a large supply of power, which will be available to manufacturers at low rates. This is necessary because there are no coal or other fuel deposits close to Winnipeg and production of power by means of steam is therefore a most expensive process.

When the Point Du Bois plant is opened power will be available at rates varying from eighteen to twelve dollars per horse power per year, the plant working, of course, night and day.

It is expected that, within a year or two after the plant is opened, the receipts from the sale of power will not only pay the running expenses, but will be sufficient to establish a fund for the redemption of the bonds at their maturity.

The municipal plant will also furnish power for city lighting and other mu