LOCAL HISTORY

Garden Plots Available To Brighton Employees

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Brighton's Warp and Welt Magazine - March 1943

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A letter from Mr. Morrison on Victory Gardens has been sent to every employee living in the Village. This letter very strongly urges everyone to get busy and plant a Victory Garden.

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If you want a plot for your garden, please fill in the coupon at the bottom of the letter and turn it in at the office at once.

 

The size of each garden plot will be approximately fifty by fifty feet. The locations for the gardens will be at the north end of the Village, close to the ball park; the extreme south end of the Village; and between First Street and the pasture fence. It is the intention to try to assign gardens as close as possible to the individuals’ homes. The mill will plow and harrow each plot, and from there on it is up to each gardener to take over and really do some work.

 

Just as soon as all applications are in we will start assigning Victory Garden plots, and it is our aim to have everything ready for planting by the second week in March.

 

A.D. Hull, Jr.

 

Mr. Morrison’s letter follows:

 

February 24, 1943

 

To All Employees:

 

I assume it is unnecessary to call your attention to the serious food situation with which all of us are confronted this year and perhaps straight on through for the duration of the war. I believe the possible shortage is a good deal more serious than the average person realizes. Of course you know that beginning immediately canned foods and certain dried vegetables will be rationed and the chances are that as we go along and the supply becomes scarcer the quantity available for civilians will be cut more and more.

 

Under such circumstances it should not be necessary to urge people to take steps themselves to assure their families an abundant supply of fresh vegetables which all of us can produce with very little effort. As a matter of fact, it may be the difference between having a plentiful supply to eat and not having it.

 

From time to time in past years we have endeavored to provide garden pots for employees who live in the Village, but invariably our experience has been the same. Here is a lot of enthusiasm in the early Spring, all of which peters out to nothing before the Summer is well on its way. In fact, the results have been so discouraging that I believe for the last year or so we have not even attempted to provide these garden plots because the expense of providing them and preparing the land has not been justified by the results obtained.

 

By reason of the present serious food situation we are again this year going to provide garden pots for each employee who is interested. Mr. Hull will have full charge of this program, and through him or whomever he may designate, you may obtain one of these plots for your own use. We shall undertake to plow the plots, and from there on it will be up to you as to what use you make of it.

 

I should like for you to bear one thing in mind, however, and that is that if you sign up for one of these plots you should do so with the full intention of making the greatest possible use of it. Otherwise you will simply be depriving someone else of the use of the plot.

 

And one more thing–you should plan to buy your seed promptly, since there is a possibility of a scarcity developing by reason of the fact that literally hundreds of thousands of people will be planting gardens this year who never planted them before, and you will not want to risk the possibility of being unable to obtain your seed.

 

If you are interested in having a garden plot please fill in the blank at the bottom of this page and return it to Mr. Hull. When the plan is completed a plot will be assigned to you by number, and you will be notified which plot is yours.

 

Cordially yours\

Julian K. Morrison, President

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