A food stamp follow-up with gardening
A few weeks ago this column included the reprint of a 1936 article on a Depression-era food assistance program.
The gist was that our county supervisors, seeking to assure that the modest funding available be allotted only to those truly in need, ruled that anyone who owned an automobile was not eligible.
I compared this approach to that of today, which has managed to balloon annual food stamp spending from $35 billion to $75 billion in two years. Food stamps go to those genuinely in need.
They’re also handed out to people who drive late model SUVs, carry a smart-phone with GPS, and use their SNAP cards to buy Coke and cheesecake.
That column received one positive response, along with one that was not. This overwhelming display of interest causes me to broach the subject one more time.
Below the headline “MUST GARDEN OR BE CUT FROM ALL ASSISTANCE FROM COUNTY” was following article, which appeared in the spring of 1934 and describes an attempt to encourage self-sufficiency:
Garden seeds are now available for the needy. Seeds for the Seeds of Subsistence gardens are now ready to be picked up in the county office. Each town’s allotment will be turned over to the Chairman for distribution.
The seeds for these gardens are: Radishes, Lettuce, Peas, Carrots, Cabbage, Beans, Tomatoes, Turnips, Sweet Corn and Beets.
No family that does not have a garden will be given assistance by the county if members of the family are able bodied and have a place or are provided with one. It is expected that each family on relief will raise enough in these gardens to furnish vegetables throughout the season and also for 40 cans per person for winter use.
Each family receiving seeds must sign an agreement that the weeds will be kept down, that none of the produce will be sold, that the gardens may be inspected at any time by the Garden Committee and that the surplus will be dried or canned for winter.
I know, it sounded good until that part about taking care of weeds.
And I wonder who could handle 40 cans of beets, regardless of how long the winter?
The subsistence gardening idea became popular throughout the Midwest during Depression years and continued into World War ll.
The standard approach was to appoint a chair person to oversee the project, including identification of suitable plots for town dwellers lacking garden space. These sites, usually vacant lots, were then plowed, prepared for seeding, divided into sections, and assigned to participants.
A proposal of this sort would be met with outraged indignation today, but at the time Subsistence Gardens worked quite well.
The downside was that even then there were those who helped themselves to things they didn’t deserve.
An article published in late summer reported that thieves hit the plots about the time sweet corn was ready.
They probably communicated by cell phone. We find no report of them bothering the turnips.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com