Date: April 22, 1931
Location: Northampton, MA
(Original document available here)
If one of the results of unemployment is to turn more people to planting a garden, some of the loss from the depression will be retrieved. The waste of land and time to which we as a nation are so addicted will be reduced. Many of our foreign born excel our native stock in raising fruits and vegetables about the home. They are the true disciples of diversification and are not entirely dependent on the pay envelope for supplies.
The garden has more than economic importance. There is something wholesome and refreshing in tilling the soil. It has a cultural value of its own. The earliest creative impulse of the human race turned in that direction. The record goes back to Adam. Directing the growth of plant life into orderly ways gives us a consciousness of working with nature which we cannot get from mechanics or commerce. There is a color and fragrance in our own flower, a texture and flavor in our own produce, a solace and comfort in our own garden which cannot be purchased.
In adversity and in prosperity we are instinctively drawn to the great mother of us all, the soil.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge Says: Dispatches Written by Former-President Coolidge and Syndicated to Newspapers in 1930-1931 (Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation)
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Robert Manchester who prepared this document for digital publication.