Police to Give Gardens Care

From The Indianapolis Star, Saturday, May 4: In response to the depredations by dogs, cats, chickens, cattle, horses, hogs, and other pests on some of the 45,000 vacant lots being cultivated by patriotic citizens for war gardens, Mayor Charles Jewett and Chief of Police George Coffin warned that city ordinances prohibiting “any fowl or animal of any kind” running at large will be “strictly enforced by the police department and every protection under the law will be given to people who are engaged in the patriotic work of planting a war garden.” Among the worst offenders, according to the Patriotic Gardeners Association, are chickens, dogs and cats. Owners of these pests will be warned and if their animals are found ravaging gardens in the future the offenders will be punished accordingly and the owners prosecuted.

“Police to Give Gardens Care,” The Indianapolis Star, 4 May 1918, p. 18:3