FLOWERS IN DRAB STREETS.
To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—Whatever success may ultimately attend the new l lousing Schemes, the problem of the ugliness and congestion of the London slums will remain with us for many years to come. Realizing the serious effect these have on the health and general outlook of the slum dweller, the London Gardens Guild believes the cultivation of flowers to be a civic duty. A large number of Garden Societies have been formed during the last ten years in all parts of London, and already the work is bearing fruit in such districts as Bermondsey, Poplar, Fulham, and the slum districts of Kensington, and many drab streets with neglected yards have become bright and gay with flowers.
One important item of the work done by the Guild is the arrangement of popular lantern lectures, by experts, on Town Gardening. There are also increasing demands to extend this work to other towns, where gardens are neglected for want of proper information, and where a love of gardens can only conic through an enlightened public opinion. Garden Competitions, Flower Shows, and Lectures, are some of the means used by the Guild to create and maintain this opinion. At present the Head Office is receiving requests for lecturers from all over London, but this demand cannot be satisfied because of lack of funds. Those districts from which the demand is strongest, and where the growing of flowers is most urgent, are the poorest areas of London, where it is financially impossible for the people to pay even the expenses of an expert lecturer. It is only necessary to have seen some of the little front and back gardens in the poorest shun districts to realize, most poignantly, the joys these flowers can give, both to the growers and to the passers-by.
Quite definitely, the work of the Guild must come to an end, unless those who profess to understand the effects flowers have on the health of mind and body at once help us finan- cially. The Hon. Treasurer, Miss M. D. Stubbs, 124 Walworth Road, S.E. 17, will be glad to receive donations or annual subscriptions.
(Signed) HENRIETTA 0. BARNETT, D.B.E.
P. M. KINGSTON (Bishop of Kingston). A. MAUDE Ron:ins; (Guildhouse, West- minster).
C. W. SALEEBY, M.D., F.R.S.E.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY (Editor, the Spectator).
KATHERINE THICKNESSE (Warden, Lady Margaret Hall Settlement). London Gardens Guild Office, 124 Walworth Road, S.E.17.
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