GREENSBORO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
WILLIAM C. A. HAMMEL, SUPERINTENDENT
GREENSBORO, N.C.

April twenty-eighth
Nineteen seventeen

Hon. David Franklin Houston
Secretary of Agriculture
Washington, D. C.

My dear Secretary Houston,

In view of your expressed desire for the mobilization of one million boys for agricultural service, you will, I am sure, be interested in what has been done by the Greensboro city schools toward greater food production in this section.

Early in the spring three hundred and nineteen boys and girls in the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades began to make home gardens under the supervision of Miss Ethel Gowans, government expert, and will follow out the work of home gardening during the summer under the direction of six city school teachers who have been under the special instruction of Miss Gowans, and who will remain, on extra salary, during the vacation for the express purpose of furthering the home gardening scheme.

These plans were made and put into operation before war was declared, and in the interest of greater food production in the South.

Immediately upon the declaration of war the Greensboro High School boys under eighteen years were asked to volunteer to some concerted service for the tilling of waste land about the city. A large proportion of the high school enrollment expressed themselves willing to prove their patriotism with the hoe. A few days later the whole body of high school boys asked if they might have military training in the school. The matter of military training in the high school had for some months been under discussion by the civic bureau of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce of which bureau I am chairman, but the committee on the business had been unable to agree.

The boys were advised to take the matter for themselves to the Board of City Commissioners. The commissioners consented to comply with the boys’ request, and in a few days The High School Battalion was formed, eighty-four boys, enlisting under the command of Major S. Glenn Brown, Judge Advocate General Department, Judge Advocate Tenth Division North Carolina, Ordinance Officer on Mexican border. Major Brown is Judge of the Greensboro Municipal Court.

Major Brown immediately made plain to the boys the duty of service in whatsoever manner the country needs help, and explained that drilling in military tactics would not be the only feature of the battalion’s duty to the country at this time.

In the meantime, the use of a forty acre idle field just outside the city was obtained for cultivation, and Mr. Andrew Joiner, Sr., an expert gardener, and recently a government employe in Santo Domingo, offered to general the agricultural side of the service, and the city and county commissioners offered labor and plows for breaking the ground.

Last Saturday morning the battalion, eighty-four strong, marched to the scene of action, where a traction plow was turning the soil. Today the boys planted twenty-five acres. Later they will work in companies, and in the summer they will camp on the field in companies.

There is no atom of charity connected with the work. Major Brown and Mr. Joyner, and Mr. Benbow who lent the farm, are adding their services to the bit they wish to do for the country. The expenses for plow labor, fertilizer, and wages for the boys, are for the present financed by friends of the undertaking, but all debts will be paid later when the crops mature. The boys are to be paid five cents an hour for actual labor. The crops are corn, potatoes, cabbage, onion and other staples. Occasionally, between the rows of corn, watermelons, and canteloupes are planted for the refreshment of the boys in their summer labors.

Great interest in the scheme is manifested by the boys and by the town and county people. The boys are enthusiastic over the drilling and marching, and have made wonderful progress in the two or three drills they have had. And I am glad to say they are quite as enthusiastic over the agricultural side of their new endeavors.

So far as I know this is the first scheme of the kind to be put into operation, and might afford a suggestion for others desiring to work along the same line.

Eighty acres more have been offered and may be tilled by the High School Battalion.

Now Mr. Secretary, we want you to understand that the High School Battalion of Greensboro stands ready to a man to obey any command that you may wish to give and respectfully offers its services to the government in the cause of food production.

Most respectfully,

Wm. C. A. Hammel

Enclosed in: 1917, April 30. Hammel to Bickett.