"A profusion of vegetables - beets, carrots,
onions, potatoes, beans, turnips, and
tomatoes - were harvested from (fort)
garden plots."
'Broadax & Bayonet,' Francis Paul Prucha
General order - "To promote the health of the troops and facilitate the necessary arrangements for subsisting the army...the commanding officer of every permanent post and garrisons...will annually cultivate a garden, by the troops under his command, equal to supplying hospital and garrisons with the necessary kitchen vegetables throughout the year..."
Adjutant and Inspector General's office, Sept. 11, 1818
Vegetable gardens were established at every permanent military post, including Fort Scott. In order to keep the men healthy, fresh produce needed to be provided in some way. Each company had a small plot for their own use, as did the hospital and the individual officers. Plants grown at Fort Scott included cabbages, carrots, muskmelons, onions, peas, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, radishes, and turnips. After harvesting their crops, the soldiers would have to preserve and store them. During the summer months, the garden plot before you has a small sample of some of the produced that was grown here historically.
[Photo captions, from top to bottom, read]
· This
photo (1868), taken in front of the frontier-era hospital building, shows a small fenced vegetable plot located roughly where the fort's original hospital garden would have been located in the 1840s.
· Reenactors maintaining a modern demonstration garden.
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