THE KITCHEN GARDENS OF DETROIT.
With a wisdom which we applaud, Mr. Henry Ford has commanded all his married employees to grow vegetables. They must grow enough by next winter to make their families partly self-supporting. Men who do not grow vegetables will be dismissed.
But what about men who cannot grow vegetables ? We have every reason to believe that the type exists, just as there are those people on whose wrists no watch will go. We ourselves, from youth up, have made repeated attempts to grow mustard and cress on flannel ; but always without success. And we know of many similar and still more striking cases—men whose kindliest touch suffices to quench the vital spark in a young horse-radish, men for whom beans will grow no faster than buck-shot. Psychologists are at a loss to account for this strange inability. Stiipfelkraut attributes it to hereditary causes, holding that it is the great-grand-children of men who ate peas with a knife who are thus handicapped in life's struggle. Criq, Nimbelbaum, and (of course) W. J. Straphanger disagree vehemently, but without—to our mind—advancing a satisfactory alternative theory. Whatever the explanation, there must be many among Mr. Ford's married employees who are unable to comply with his edict. For them, it seems, there are only two courses open. They must obtain either (a) a special dispensation permitting them to breed rabbits, or
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