Category — History

Chinese vegetable gardens, c. 1880s, below Pacific Heights at approx. today’s Union and Gough Streets in “Cow Hollow”.
Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library

“Cow Hollow’s history shows that cities used to produce much of their own food.”

By Ben Tarnoff
Where the Buffalo Roam
Apr 11, 2011

Excerpt:

In 1849, when the Gold Rush brought hordes of gold speculators to San Francisco and rapidly transformed the small Mexican village into a major city, Cow Hollow was a valley irrigated by several creeks, with a large freshwater pond. It was an ideal place to graze cattle. The first dairy sprung up in 1861, and more soon followed.

On land now occupied by cupcake shops, clothing boutiques, and sports bars, there existed hundreds and hundreds of cows, supplying milk to the growing population of San Francisco. The city needed it, because no large agricultural region yet existed: San Francisco developed so rapidly, most food was imported rather than grown in California.

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Mr & Mrs Vinegar. Illustration by Arthur Rackham. From the book ‘English Fairy Tales’, first published 1918.

I have often heard the pleasant sound of the spade even by moonlight.

By George Johnson
The Cottage Gardener
Volume 4, London
1850

Excerpt:

There is some spare time for labourers, in the long days when work is over, that might be profitably spent in cultivating vegetables; and this makes it sad to see idle men and boys lounging in a village street, having nothing to occupy their evening hours. The allotments, indeed, where they exist at all, employ many who frequently toil on them till it is quite dark; and I have often heard the pleasant sound of the spade even by moonlight. But still, in a populous village there are a great number who really have no ground to till, except, perhaps, an atom of damp earth behind their dwellings. It would be a work of ‘rational’, doubly-beneficial charity – a means of doing unspeakable good – to let, or rent for the purpose of letting, to the poor pieces of land near every village; so that as many as possible, if not all the cottagers, should have a portion of ground to cultivate. Industrious characters would thus be materially assisted in providing for their families, and men of lazy habits ‘might’ be encouraged to amend.

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Saint Fiacre is the patron Saint of Gardeners. Image from “The Armchair Book of Gardens” by Jane Billinghurst.

St. Fiacre is the patron saint of herb and vegetable gardens, men who like to garden and taxi cab drivers

By Karen Holcomb,
eHow com
Dec 2010

Excerpt:

Vegetable gardens have several patron saints, according to “Butler’s Lives of the Saints” and Catholic Online’s database of saints. They include St. Werenfrid, patron saint of vegetable gardens; St. Isidore, patron saint of farmers and large gardens; St. Fiacre, patron saint of herb and vegetable gardens; and St. Patrick, who is not only the patron saint of the Irish, but also of organic gardening.

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Leningrad during the Seige. Vegetable gardens near the gates of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, c. 1943. Photo by Boris Kudoyarov.

The contribution of urban agriculture to human sustainable development is potentially important.

By Louiza Mansourovna Boukharaeva
Professor of Philosophy at Kazan Technical University (Russia)
and
Marcel Marloie
Researcher in rural economy and sociology in the National Institute of Agronomic Researches (France)
Unknown date

Excerpt:

In the Russian case where the State has always been controlling food distribution channels, Family Urban Agriculture (FUA), as with peasant plots in rural areas, served a food contribution function, including a way to help the survival of families in case of serious crises. The Soviet period caused a specific evolution to the long history of FUA. The social destruction and very rapid urbanization of the 1920’s and 30’s happened with the destruction of the older forms of urban agriculture.

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Today, urban agriculture is making a comeback

By Zach Behrens
KCET
February 11, 2011

Excerpt:

“Until the 1950s, Los Angeles County was the top agricultural county in the U.S. From approximately 1910 to 1955, this was it; it was bigger than Iowa or any of those Midwestern states in terms of its agriculture. We grew everything here,” Surls explained. “It sort of dates back to the founding of Los Angeles when people first came and looked at Los Angeles as a potential site for a mission. They saw that it had great soil, they saw that things grew well here and they thought, ‘ah ha, perfect place for farming.’ So that’s how it started.”

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“The home garden eliminates transportation and distribution costs and solves the marketing problem.”

By Frederic J Haskin
Los Angeles Times
March 16, 1927

In the greater part of the United States the time is at hand for getting out the spade, hoe and rake and starting a little preliminary work in the garden. That is, unless your home is in a city apartment and your garden is a box in a window ledge, and all the tools you need are wrapped up in one little old kitchen knife.

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A farmer, eh? Master of your own time, down to the city for a spree. Y’know, I’ve always wanted to break away and have a little farm in the country.”

[This article first appeared in American Mercury (November 1937).

I used to be a timid, thin man. I never got on very well in the city. When I was talking to people, they tended to drift away, or they turned to someone else and said: "Having nice weather, aren't we?" I didn't see in my job any of the heroic aspects my superiors were always glorying in, so probably I wasn't very good at it.

For a while I turned to poetry and wrote a beauty about the song of the hermit thrush, but everybody in the office thought it was la-di-da. I didn't like noise or smoke or subways or hurrying or playing golf or getting drunk Saturday nights, so I began to think there must be something wrong.

I went to a psychoanalyst who told me I disliked everything too much. For this I took a great dislike to the psychoanalyst. I refused to pay five bucks for this new hate, and the psychoanalyst ended by hating me. So I decided to "get away from it all" — to move from the city to the great quiet of the country and simplify my life. I bought a farm far up in New England, and I bought a cow, too. I had always wanted to own a cow and watch it cropping my grass while I dreamed the days away.

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In the spring of 1915, The Vacant Lots Cultivation Association in conjunction with the Toronto Rotary Club established over 80 garden allotments across the City of Toronto in under-utilized and vacant spaces.

From Soiled and Seeded Magazine
Issue 2 – Winter 2011

Excerpt:

Below is an article reproduced from The Rotarian, Volume VII, No. 5 November 1915, describing the success of the project’s inaugural year. The accompanying photos, not appearing in the original publication, are located in the City of Toronto Archives.

Vacant Lot Cultivation Yields $5,700
By B. A. Trestrail, Toronto Rotary Club

The land donated by citizens for public use for this purpose was divided into approximately one-eighth acre lots. A supply of ten varieties of vegetable seeds, a peck of seed potatoes, two dozen tomato plants and fifty cabbage plants were furnished free with each allotment.

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Washington, DC; Jac’s Presentation on Urban Agriculture at Wilson Center with Photo of Del-Mar-VA Greenhouse in Background; 2002; Photo by Wilson Center PR Department.

Issue 2 – Jac Smit tributes: On the past and the future of the urban agriculture movement Agriculture Movement

Reflections in tribute to Jac Smit
by Anne C. Bellows, Joe Nasr (editors); Diana Lee-Smith, Luc J. A. Mougeot, Michael Levenston, Peter Mann, Katherine Brown, Jerry Kaufman (contributors)
Volume 1 Issue 2 JAFSCD
December 2010
Highly recommended. Historical perspective on urban agriculture. Mike

Subscribe to the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD) here.

Excerpt:

The relationship between food and cities is newly maturing after decades in the shadows, with urban agriculture acting as a pivotal lynch pin in the development. To comprehend this reemergence, one must understand the role that Jac Smit, who passed away in 2009, played in it. His curiosity and vision pursued the ramifications of urban agriculture on planning for social, financial, and environmental systems and infrastructures, in and near cities, including job creation, food production and nutrition enhancement, gray – and wastewater recycling, urban composting, air cooling and cleaning, and the presence of a framework of green zones.

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1877. Upper right, “Tunnel From Dock”. Part of image: The Manhattan abattoir. By Kingsbury, V. L., artist. Harper’s weekly : a journal of civilization. Link.

The development of urban foodways in New York City

Archaeological Documentary Study No. 7 Line Extension/ Hudson Yards Rezoning, New York, New York
April 13, 2004

Excerpt:

Historically, meat marketing and processing facilities in Manhattan were established along the shoreline to facilitate the movement of livestock and feed since the waterfront, with accessible transportation routes, was ideal for receiving goods from Long Island, upstate New York, New Jersey, and eventually the Midwest. Manhattan’s supply of beef in the 19th and 20th centuries came from local slaughterhouses, with livestock arriving by rail at terminals on the west shore of the Hudson River. Large stock pens were maintained primarily in New Jersey, where the cattle were kept until needed by the slaughterhouses in Manhattan.

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Girls working in a garden in Chatham NY, 1917.

To the Editor of the New York Times:

By Amateur Farmer
Bronx
Feb 10, 1910
An early use of the term “City Farming” for home gardening. Mike

– According to his definition, I am a farmer, as I own and occupy a piece of ground, roughly speaking, 50 feet by 110 feet, located toward the northern part of the Bronx, but well within the boundaries of the Twenty-fourth Ward. I farm a piece about 25 feet by 70 feet; the balance of the ground is taken up by the house and a green – not lawn.

– and now after sixteen years’ cropping, the soil is in fine condition, fit to grow almost anything, and I can surely say that there has not been one in all these years when I have not been amply repaid for the labor and money expended.

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1899. Man working in large garden. See larger image here.

Impoverished Brooklyn Truck Gardeners Elbowing Old-Fashioned Agriculturists Out of Queens

New York Times
Feb 6, 1899
An early use of the term “City Farming” for commercial urban agriculture. Mike

The recently increased assessments on lands in the outlying districts of Queens Borough have caused many farmers there to sell their property and move outside the city limits, where the tax rate is less. These farmers have feared that they might have to sell at a loss, but developments within the last few days, it is said, show that some of the land commands prices much higher than the assessed valuations.

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First head gardener, Catherine Shapiro, working in City Farmer’s Demonstration Food Garden in 1982.

City Farmer promoted urban agriculture in 1982

By Canadian Press
Lethbridge Herald
March 20, 1982

Vancouver (CP Canadian Press) – An urban agriculture group is urging Vancouver residents to save money and reduce Canada’s dependence on foreign farmers by digging up lawns, parks and boulevards.

Michael Levenston of City Farmer estimates 26 square kilometres of arable land in the city are not growing food. And he suggests some of the effort that goes into creating lush lawns would be better spent on producing vegetables.

City Farmer sprouted with a 1978 grant from the federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The original members were not gardeners but people hoping to cut 12 to 15 per cent of Canadian energy consumption devoted to producing food.

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Uppsala in 1858. The majority of the town land in Uppsala consisted of arable fields in 1858.

The food produced on the town lands was important in relation to urban food provision

By Annika Björklund
PhD Thesis
Annika Björklund has a Licentiate of Philosophy in Human Geography and a Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Planning from Stockholm University. This book is her Doctoral Thesis in Human Geography.
September 2010
303 pages

Abstract

This doctoral thesis analyses the role of historical urban agriculture in a long-time perspective, through a combination of overarching surveys of Swedish towns and detailed studies of one town – Uppsala in east-central Sweden. The study shows how agricultural land – town land – of various sizes was donated to towns repeatedly during medieval times and in the 16th and 17th centuries.

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When Modern Was Green: Life and Work of Landscape Architect Leberecht Miggeby. By David Haney. 2010

Leberecht Migge’s “Green Manifesto”: Envisioning a Revolution of Gardens

By David H. Haney
In Landscape Jrnl. 26(2):201-218 (2007)

Leberecht Migge’s “Green Manifesto,” published in Germany in 1919, represents one of the most overtly political tracts ever written by a landscape architect. In this document, Migge proposed that all social and economic problems of the German nation could be solved by creating as many gardens as possible, which included parks, but most importantly, small, intensive vegetable gardens where everyone could grow their own food. If “everyman” could be self-sufficient, then they supposedly would enjoy relative freedom from the domination of the capitalist system.

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Fresh vegetables were collected from gardens all around the coast for the men serving in minesweepers and small naval crafts.

Thousands upon thousands of vegetables were given out

“Another Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) activity was centred on our shores. Men in minesweepers and small naval craft were often unable to spend long enough on shore to get fresh vegetables. In East Anglia, WVS members approached people who have been evacuated from their homes for permission to collect the vegetables from their gardens and take them to the docks. All around the coast and in Northern Ireland the scheme caught on. Thousands upon thousands of vegetables were given out. In winter cakes and mince pies were added to the hampers.”

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1908 Parks Annual Report image of children tending the De Witt Clinton Park Farm Garden.

Constant Gardens for New York

By Christine C. Quinn and Melissa Mark-Viverito
New York Times
August 18, 2010
Christine C. Quinn is the speaker of the New York City Council, and Melissa Mark-Viverito is the chairwoman of its parks committee.

Excerpt:

Community Gardens are as much a part of our city as the Empire State Building or Times Square.

Yet it wasn’t long ago that their existence was threatened. As mayor in the late 1990s, Rudolph Giuliani tried to auction them off to developers. But gardeners dug in, held rallies. One protester chained himself to a building in a garden. The state attorney general filed a lawsuit to stop the auctions. Some of the gardens were sold to nonprofit groups. And, in a settlement agreement in the lawsuit, almost all of the rest — nearly 300 of them — ended up under the jurisdiction of the Parks and Recreation Department. The city agreed not to sell many of them for eight years.

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Vacant Lot Transformed into a Garden by San Diego Firemen – in 1917

By Ben Jervey
The New Ideal at Good
Aug 11, 2010

Excerpt:

From The American City from 1917
“There has been agitation this season concerning the vacant city lots, and efforts have been made [throughout] the country to make such patches of land bring in returns in the way of crops, thus relieving the situation incident to the high cost of living. A group of firemen at one of the San Diego stations secured permission to cultivate a lot across the street from their building, which had been left vacant by the removal of an old stable.

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