Page 670 - Reading Mercury

Seconding, Cllr. N. Lawrence said he also thought it was not right that single men
would have to be put through a form of means test in cases of hardship.
Cllr J.H. Titterington, Ald. E.S. Whaley, Ald. P. Sale and Ald. A.E. Priest spoke in
favour of the recommendation, but Cllr. D. Goddard said he supported the reference
back because few single men would be affected.—The recommendation was carried,
only three members voting against.
The Borough Surveyor reported that his junior clerk, Mr. D. Hawkins had
volunteered for, and had been accepted by the Royal Air Force, and it was agreed that
the council make up his salary and that his appointment be kept open. It was further
agreed that the appointment of a temporary clerk in his place be left to the small sub-
committee appointed to deal with the proposed appointment of a temporary clerk in
connection with the Fuel and Lighting Order.

Fri 12th Jan
ALLOTMENTS FOR HEALTH
FROM PLOT TO POT
Did you eat your own sprouts and potatoes with your Christmas dinner this year?
Possibly you had a choice also of your own leeks or winter greens, or even cooked
beetroot or turnip. Gathered from your plot in the morning of the day you ate them.
Those vegetables must have made the turkey, the beef or the ham taste even better.
The freshness of food is not the least of the many advantages of a plot. There is
rapid deterioration of vegetables in transit, in markets and in the shops, and the
gardener has the good fortune to enjoy vegetables at their very best for nutrition and
health
But this stream of health from plot to pot is no one-way traffic. Happy and healthy
is the man who can get away to the plot for fresh air and exercise and satisfy the
natural instinct to produce something.
Cultivation of a plot can benefit all members of the community. It benefits the man
who is merely a cog in the industrial machine, spending most of his working hours
amid the soul-destroying monotony of repetition work. It brings health and pleasure to
the man whose calling necessitates spending his time in artificial or unhealthy
surroundings, and to the black-coated worker in shop and office.
A fine tribute has been paid to the virtues of allotments in the area of
unemployment. School-masters in these areas say they can quite easily pick out the
children of allotment holders from their other scholars because they are invariably
better clothed and fed and are more alert and attentive.
The fact that the children are better clothed leads to a consideration of the economic
side of vegetable gardening. It has been proved that produce to the value {in peace
time, let alone war time) of £5 to £10 can be grown on a ten-rod plot of 300 square
yards. In fact these figures are often exceeded by experienced allotment holders.
What does this mean in terms of the family budget? Well, an average family of three
will require, say 3/- worth of home grown vegetables a week, which amounts to an
expenditure of £7 16s. a year, so the plot of 300 square yards will meet this
requirement. Of course it does not mean that it will cover the requirements for the
whole year; some portion will have to be bought from the shops and this will include
produce brought from overseas at certain times of the year, but it is our wartime duty
to do all we can to avoid reliance on bought-in supplies of overseas origin.
Gardeners and allotment holders would do well to study carefully the cropping plan
laid down in the Growmore Bulletin No. 1 of the Ministry of Agriculture which gives
a rotation of crops for the plot designed to spread production as far as possible over

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