WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
CHARLES LATHROP PACK
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
ITS WAR TIME NEED AND ITS ECONOMIC VALUE IN PEACE
Will you have a part
in
I Victory?
"Every Garden a Munition Plant"
*^ Charles Lathrop Pack, Pr«,<W
THIS POSTER, USED IN 1918, AND WITH DIFFERENT SLOGANS IN
1919, WAS POPULAR WHEREVER IT APPEARED AND DID MUCH TO
EXTEND THE WAR GARDEN MOVEMENT
( ;
The War Garden Victorious
BY
CHARLES LATHROP PACK
ILLUSTRATED
PRESS OF
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
COPYRIGHTED IQIQ BY THE NATIONAL WAR GARDEN COMMISSION
Ltb.
*-*
I
THIS book is dedicated to the War Gardeners of the United States and Allied countries in admiration of their success in adding to the world's supply of food during the World War.
Efc&s^-^ttafe*
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. How THE NATIONAL WAR GARDEN COMMISSION
CAME INTO BEING i
II. THE STORY OF THE WAR GARDEN 12
III. How WAR GARDENS HELPED 24
IV. TYPES OF WAR GARDENS 35
V. UNCLE SAM'S FIRST WAR GARDEN 46
VI. How BIG BUSINESS HELPED 53
VII. How THE RAILROADS HELPED 68
VIII. THE ARMY OF SCHOOL GARDENERS 73
IX. COMMUNITY GARDENING 79
X. COOPERATION IN GARDENING 89
XI. WAR GARDENS AS CITY ASSETS 96
XII. THE PART PLAYED BY DAYLIGHT SAVING 105
XIII. THE FUTURE OF WAR GARDENING 109
XIV. CONSERVING THE GARDEN SURPLUS 121
XV. COMMUNITY CONSERVATION 126
XVI. CONSERVATION BY DRYING 134
XVII. WHY WE SHOULD USE DRIED FOODS 145
XVIII. THE FUTURE OF DEHYDRATION 155
XIX. COOPERATION OF THE PRESS 165
APPENDIX
" WAR GARDENING," VICTORY EDITION, 1919 " HOME CANNING AND DRYING," VICTORY EDITION, 1919
ix
COLOR PLATES
PAGE
" Every Garden a Munition Plant " Frontispiece
A Poster Spreading the Idea of Militant War Gardens 12
A Poster for 1919, Symbolic of Victory 14
A Poster Which Was Used in 1918, and Which, Amended — Following Germany's Defeat — Was Also Forceful in 1919 16
xi
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
A First- Year War Garden 4
On Historic Ground 6
A Typical City Garden 8
A Veteran War Gardener 10
No " Slacker Land " Here 18
One of Cleveland's War Gardens 20
No Wonder She Smiles 22
Garden of a Chicago Amateur 26
In an Italian Garden 28
In the Champion Garden City 30
Medal in Commemoration of the War Garden 32
The War Gardener's Boast 34
Pioneers in Summer Hotel Gardening 38
An Army Garden at the Red Cross Threshold 42
A Prize-Winning Garden 44
" Now, Boys, Show 'Em How to Harvest " 46
" Potatoes Up ! Forward March ! " 48
Gathering the Potatoes 50
Going Out to Meet the Crop 52
What a Factory Worker Did 54
All the Family Helps 56
A Versatile Manufacturing Concern 60
War Garden Display in Bank Window 62
Nationality Made No Difference 64
This Is Not Neptune 66
On Pennsylvania Railroad Ground 68
Some Railroad " Soldiers of the Soil " 70
Along the East River Front 74
One of Cleveland's School Gardens 76
xiii
xiv ILLUSTRATIONS
Planting a Community Garden 80
Boy Scouts Raised the Food 82
" Papa, See Me Hoe? " 84
Raising " Food F. O. B. the Factory Door " 86
A Polyglot Assembly 90
Down in " The Yards " 94
'Midst Towering Skyscrapers 98
War Garden on Boston Common 102
" County Fair " in Bryant Park 104
No Age Limit on Patriotism 106
Prize- Winning Canning Team in Iowa no
The Question Is : Does It " Jell "? 112
Received Certificate Number One 114
Interior of a Bank, Not a Fine Grocery 116
Getting the Winter Supply Ready 118
A Prize- Winning Exhibit 122
Girl Scouts Can Can, Too 126
Service Flag of the Home Canner 128
Achievement Club Girls 130
He Is Not Lecturing; He Won the Canning Contest 134
Preparing to Dry Vegetables 136
A Montana Prize Canner 138
They Helped to Can the Kaiser 140
Food Goes with the Flag 142
Toothsome Viands at Dried Food Luncheon 148
Drying Peaches in California 152
Preparing Raisins for the Market 156
Boxes for Drying Raisins 160
The Knights of Printers Ink Heard the Call for Food 166
Typical Headings from News Sheets 170
How Newspaper " Copy " Was Sent Out 172
With Picture and Type the Press Urged Gardening 176
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
CHAPTER I
HOW THE NATIONAL WAR GARDEN COMMISSION CAME INTO BEING
THE NEED OF MAKING EVERY GARDEN A MUNITION PLANT
THE war garden was a war-time necessity. This was true because war conditions made it essential that food should be raised where it had not been produced in peace times, with labor not engaged in agricultural work and not taken from any other industry, and in places where it made no demand upon the railroads already overwhelmed with trans- portation burdens.
The knowledge that the world faced a deficit in food, that there existed an emergency which could be met only by the raising of more food, was apparent to every well-informed and thinking man and woman during the early months of 1917.
The author, wishing, as every patriot wished, to do a war work which was actually necessary, which was essentially practical, and which would most certainly aid in making the war successful, conceived the idea in March, 1917, of inspiring the people of the United States to plant war gardens in order to increase the supply of food without the use of land already cultivated, of
2 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
labor already engaged in agricultural work, of time de- voted to other necessary occupations, and of trans- portation facilities which were already inadequate to the demands made upon them.
In March, therefore, some weeks before the United States entered the war, he organized for this work a commission known as the National War Garden Commission.
What were the causes which led to the world's lack of food and the need of a largely increased production by the United States to prevent world starvation?
When the drums sounded the call to the colors in the summer of 1914, three million Frenchmen shouldered their rifles and marched away from a large proportion of the five million farms of France; and mostly these were one-man farms. Russia, a nation almost wholly agricultural, mobilized perhaps eight millions of men. All the men of fighting age in Belgium were summoned to the army. England, possessing only a " contempt- ible little army, " straightway began a recruiting cam- paign which within a few years swelled the ranks of her military forces to five millions. Germany called out her entire fighting force of military age, an army of several millions. Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey like- wise mobilized their full fighting forces. Altogether, twenty or thirty million men were called away from their usual pursuits. The vocation of the majority of them was farming. Thus, at one stroke, practically all the farms in the embattled nations were swept clear of male workers.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 3
At the same time the harvests were maturing or al- ready ripe for the sickle; and over these laden acres swept the millions of soldiers, trampling, burning and destroying vast stores of food. In Belgium and France on the west front, and in Hungary, East Prussia, and Russia on the east, thousands upon thousands of crop- bearing acres were devastated and laid waste.
In a few short weeks this was the situation: the food supply was largely decreased, vast areas of farming land were rendered unproductive, and the farms were practically stripped of their accustomed tillers. The world's food supply was thrown entirely out of balance. Ordinarily the food-supply system was as nicely adjusted as the parts of a watch. Production was balanced against consumption. Given markets were supplied from given sources.
So unfailing was this system that each of the belli- gerent nations absolutely depended upon other nations for certain parts of its food, and had received its expected supply as unfailingly as our daily milk and newspapers are delivered at our doors. Thus England procured most of her sugar from Germany, and Italy got wheat from Russia, by way of the Dardanelles. At one stroke, this nicely balanced system was destroyed.
Worse than the wrecking of the system of distribution was the unbalancing of production itself. Millions of farms, stripped of their male workers, necessarily became either wholly unproductive or able to raise but a fraction of their normal output. In a moment's time, as it were, the food production of Europe was
4 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
lessened by millions and millions of bushels. Since food production is not, like Aladdin's palace, the creation of a night, this inevitably meant a shortage in the world's food supply. Before the European deficit could be made good by increased production elsewhere, months and perhaps years must elapse.
Then came the submarine, further to complicate matters. By hundreds of thousands of tons the world's shipping was sent to the bottom of the sea, so that in a short time the food situation wore an entirely new aspect. No matter what mountainous piles of proven- der might accumulate in the distant parts of the earth, it was not available for the nations at war. Ships could not be spared for long and distant voyages. If the 120,000,000 people of the Entente nations were to have food, if they were to procure enough to keep them from actual starvation, that food must come from the nearest markets. Only by sending their ships back and forth from these markets, back and forth like shuttles in a loom, could food be transported rapidly enough to keep this great population from starvation. Prior to the war England had produced but one-fifth of her own food supply, France one-half of hers, and Italy two-thirds of what she consumed, and now their home production was fearfully decreased. The nearest possible markets where food could be produced were in North America, and principally in our own country. Thus the burden of feeding the Entente fell very largely upon the United States. Whether we wished to undertake the task or not, Fate had saddled the burden upon our backs.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 5
This fact, however, was not patent immediately. At least it was glimpsed only by those of keen pene- tration. In every country there were some accumulated stores. These served to delay the approach of actual hunger. Then came the year, 1916, which was, agri- culturally, the most disastrous year the world has known, in recent times. Crops failed everywhere. Eu- ropean production decreased terribly. Our own fell off by hundreds of millions of bushels. What was left of accumulated surpluses was eaten up. The great drain on our food resources wiped out our surpluses also, for, in effect at least, we had pooled our food resources with our fellows in Europe. Thus both Europe and America found themselves living a hand- to-mouth existence.
It was barely an existence, at that — at least for our allies in Europe. So terrible had the food shortage there become that the daily rations had been cut to the minimum that would sustain life and strength. The peasant population of continental Europe, which means a large part of the people, lives principally upon wheat in one form or another. In France bread is literally the staff of life, normally constituting 52 per cent, of the Frenchman's food. Yet the French bread ration was successively lowered until at one time it reached seven ounces a day per capita. In Italy, the sale of macaroni was entirely prohibited in certain districts, and the bread ration was cut to eight ounces a day. Hard-working laborers were allowed fifteen ounces. In both of these countries even the bread ration of the
6 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
soldier was sharply reduced — a measure to which resort is had only in situations of direst necessity. Indeed, many well-informed persons attribute the disaster of 1917 on the Italian front to the lowering of morale con- sequent upon the cutting of the bread ration. The soldier well knew that if his food was cut his family must be well-nigh starving to death.
All Europe had to resort to meatless days. French milk production, as early as 1916, had fallen off sixty per cent. Dairy products were so scarce in England that cream could be secured only upon a physician's certificate declaring it necessary to the health of the recipient. Sugar consumption had to be rigidly re- stricted. The English, who before the war were the greatest users of sugar in the world, with an average consumption of something like ninety-three pounds a person a year, were restricted to twenty-six pounds per annum, and this ration was later cut to twenty-four pounds. The French were limited to thirteen pounds a year, and the sugar ration of the Italian was drastically cut to nine pounds a year. That is to say, persons of these nationalities were allowed to buy the quantities named when the foods were to be had, but often the food was not to be had. There were entire districts in France, for instance, where for days no bread at all was to be obtained and not much else. The actual consumption, therefore, was less than the ration allowed. Our own consumption, too, was sharply reduced. Through meat- less and wheatless days our use of wheat and flesh was greatly lessened, while the high prices of butter, eggs,
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 7
milk and other foods very materially aided in cutting consumption generally.
Lessened consumption, however, was not enough. There had to be increased production. Obviously Eu- rope could not raise any more food than it was raising. Since America was the only country from which it was possible for Europe to draw food, it became necessary that we should enlarge our yields. The children of Israel could not make bricks for Pharaoh without straw; and when we attempted to create food for fam- ishing Europe we experienced similar difficulty, though our shortage was of man-power. For a decade or more there had been a tremendous exodus from our farms. Our farmers cried for help, but their cry went unheeded until we found ourselves facing hunger. Then it was too late. It would have been as easy to put Humpty Dumpty together again as to bring back to the farm the thousands of boys and men who had been lured away by high wages in town and factory. How enor- mous had been this exodus from the farms we cannot tell accurately; but we know, from surveys made by the state, that, a decade ago, Pennsylvania had 160,000 farm hands as against 80,000 in 1918; and that in New York State in 1918 there were 45,000 fewer farm hands than in 1917, and 40,000 fewer farm girls. Every agri- cultural section of the nation was short-handed. When the crisis came, when the production of more food was absolutely imperative if the forces fighting for freedom were not to be starved into surrender and submission, our farms were found stripped of helpers. Our agri-
8 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
cultural system, weighed in the balance, was found wanting. The war drums which had called 3,000,000 men from the farms of France, had also created the lure of high wages in munition plants, and further robbed the farms of America. When the appeal went out to our farmers to produce more food they replied in a memorial to the President, that under existing con- ditions the previous rate of production could hardly be maintained, let alone increased — a prophecy which later proved true.
In the lexicon of the typical American there is no such word as "cannot." Keen-eyed Americans who saw the situation as it really was, decided that if the moun- tain would not go to Mahomet, they would see that Mahomet went to the mountain. The mountain in this case was labor, and Mahomet the space necessary for the production of food. These men, with that vision without which the people perish, possessed imagination. They saw little fountains of foodstuffs springing up everywhere, and the products of these tiny fountains, like rain-drops on a watershed, uniting to form rushing streams which would fill the great reservoirs built for their compounding. The tiny fountains were innumer- able back-yard and vacant-lot gardens. The problem was to create these fountains.
This could be accomplished only by the systematic education of the people, the one hundred million people of the United States. Such a huge educational cam- paign could be carried out only through the customary channels of publicity — the daily press, the periodicals,
f, ,: U.V •-
'« * " .'-..'•'
•A .'. • •• •'
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 9
the bulletin-boards, and other usual avenues. Oddly enough, it is usually hardest to influence man for his own benefit. The matter of home food production was no exception to the rule. Before the people would spring to the hoe, as they instinctively sprang to the rifle, they had to be shown, and shown conclusively, that the bearing of the one implement was as patriotic a duty as the carrying of the other. Only persistent publicity, only continual preachment, could convince the public of that. Hence it was necessary that the campaign of education be well-conducted and contin- uous. This called for the creation of an organization to back the movement and assure its standing. The author, therefore, realizing the need of developing latent resources of food supply, and after consultation with other men who were eager to do their duty in the cir- cumstances, conceived, and organized the Commission. This organization consisted of Charles Lathrop Pack, President, of New Jersey; Luther Burbank, California; P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C; Dr. Charles W. Eliot, Massachusetts; Dr. Irving Fisher, Yale Univer- sity, Connecticut; Fred H. GofT, Ohio; John Hays Hammond, Massachusetts; Fairfax Harrison, Virginia; Hon. Myron T. Herrick, Ohio; President John Grier Hibben, Princeton University, New Jersey; Emerson McMillin, New York; A. W. Shaw, Illinois; Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman, chairman of the Conservation De- partment of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Illinois; Capt. J. B. White, Missouri; Hon. James Wil-
io THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
son, former Secretary of Agriculture, Iowa; Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, Hon. Carl Vrooman, (for the year 1917); P. S. Ridsdale, Executive Secretary, who was also Executive Secretary of the American Forestry Association, with the Conservation Department of which the Commission was affiliated, and Norman C. McLoud, Associate Secretary.
The sole aim of the National War Garden Commis- sion was to arouse the patriots of America to the im- portance of putting all idle land to work, to teach them how to do it, and to educate them to conserve by can- ning and drying all food they could not use while fresh. The idea of the "city farmer" came into being. In every part of the country were communities where land and labor were already together, where it would be necessary to move neither the mountain nor Maho- met. Near every city were vacant lots, "slacker lands, " as useless as the human loafer, to whom, per- haps, Mahomet must be brought. Whether the land to be cultivated was a back yard or a vacant lot, it was a potential source of food supply, and the raising of food on these areas would solve many problems besides that of food production. Food raised by the householder in his yard or a near-by lot, was "Food F. O. B. the Kitchen Door. " There were no problems of transporta- tion or distribution to be solved in such food production.
The creation of an army of soldiers of the soil pre- sented much the same difficulties presented by the creation of any other army. First of all there was the matter of recruiting. This was a purely volunteer move-
A VETERAN WAR GARDENER
There were hundreds of men and women throughout the United States who had passed the
three-score-and-ten mark who tilled and cared for their own garden plots. This is Lewis Hunt,
of Pearl River, New York, eighty-one years of age, who on his half-acre back yard raised a large
supply of vegetables, while his daughter canned the surplus for winter use.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 11
ment and all recruits must come through voluntary enlistment. Then it was necessary to point out the importance of the work and to create enthusiasm for gardening. Next, it was necessary to train the recruits. Intelligent instruction had to be furnished, for many of these new soldiers of the soil had never before handled a hoe or a garden fork. As the campaign progressed it was found that the best results could be obtained by organizing communities. Hence it became necessary to outline methods for community organization. So unex- pectedly great was the response to the campaign that it proved essential to turn attention to the matter of food conservation, to the preservation of surplus products which the garden campaign had brought into being. The function of the Commission, therefore, was to awaken interest in both food production and food conservation and to provide instruction along each line of endeavor.
CHAPTER II THE STORY OF THE WAR GARDEN
How AMERICAN GARDENERS SOWED THE SEEDS OF VICTORY
WHILE the organizers of the War Garden Com- mission were optimistic and looked forward' confidently to the accomplishment of large results, they little dreamed that the war-garden move- ment would grow so rapidly. The war-garden idea struck a patriotic chord. The American people answered the call to help win the war by producing food in their back yards with the same unanimity and enthusiasm they had shown in responding to each other appeal the country had made for service. One reason for the prompt and eager response to the National War Garden Commission's appeal to "Sow the Seeds of Victory, " was that immediately after the United States entered the war everybody was patriotically desirous of rendering help in some form. Millions of people realized that they would never be able to take part as actual soldiers in the great task of overthrowing Prus- sian militarism. Because of this they wanted to take an active part in some effort which would show tangible results in the struggle for right and justice.
War garden?ng offered the opportunity. Although small home plots might not produce large amounts of food, such gardens made possible the saving of some of the wheat and meat and other foods which were
12
WAR GARDENS OVER THE TOP
The Seeds of Victory Insure the Fruits o/Peao
M««tt^ .y~«.«.<H-"~~ • tirvv*?*'
Copyright, 1919, National War Garden Commission.
FOR FREE BOOKS WRITE TO NATIONAL WAR GARDEN COMMISSION
WASHINGTON. D.C.
Charles LathropPack, President Percival S. Ridsdale, Secretary
A POSTER SPREADING THE IDEA OF MILITANT WAR GARDENS
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 13
needed by our army and which were practically the only kinds of food that could be shipped to our allies. Every pound of beef that could be saved through the growing of food at home, it was realized, would bring victory just so much nearer; and in fact, without food conservation, there was positive danger that the Cen<- tral Powers would be able to have their way.
The food shortage faced by Great Britain, France, and Italy during the winter of 1917-18, the seriousness of which was not realized by the people of this country until long after the danger was passed, showed the wisdom which led to the saving of every particle of food. The ability of the United States to respond so magnificently to the appeal of the late Lord Rhondda, then Food Controller of Great Britain, for 75,000,000 additional bushels of wheat early in 1918, was made possible in part by substituting in the dietary, war- garden products for the customary commercial supplies.
Once embarked upon participation in the war it be- came evident that this nation would need to exert every ounce of her power in the prosecution of the conflict. In various localities anti-loaf ing laws were speedily enacted to put every man to work. Since food was even more necessary than man-power, it was of still greater importance to put to use every particle of "slacker land" — idle soil so located that it could be worked. In our cities and towns, where the man- power was available to cultivate these areas, were thousands upon thousands of acres of idle real estate.
Few people realized the enormous aggregate acre-
14 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
age thus standing useless. There was probably no town in the United States that did not have within its boundaries at least fifty acres of idle soil. In the larger communities where garden space was needed most, the aggregate area of vacant lots was astonishing. A survey made in Minneapolis, shortly before the war began, showed more than 5,000 acres in vacant lots. In 1917 a survey disclosed 186,000 vacant lots in greater New York. ^ Altogether there were hundreds of thousands of idle acres in or near our towns and cities — the only places where labor was available for working them; and much of this land was suitable for gardening. It was of the utmost importance, therefore, to place these areas under cultivation.
In Great Britain steps had been taken very early in the war to utilize similar open spaces for the production of food. Parliament passed a law providing that any untaxed land which was not being used for the produc- tion of food might be taken over by the authorities and parceled out to those who were able and willing to rlise food. Millions of "Allotments," as they were called, were asked for, and the production of vegetables increased incredibly. Thus the British were able in 1918 to produce all the potatoes they needed, and even to send a slight surplus to France. America possessed vast areas, in the aggregate, of these idle lands; but the importance of utilizing them for food production had not been generally realized, until pointed out by the Commission. .', :
" Put the slacker land to work " became a slogan of the
WarGardensVictorious
Copyright, 1919, National War Garden Commission.
Every War Garden a PeacePlant-
— Charles Lathrop Pack.President.
NATIONALWAR GARDEN COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. A POSTER FOR 1919, SYMBOLIC OF VICTORY
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 15
National War Garden Commission; and in response to its energetic campaign toward this end, the people in 1917 put to work more than 3,000,000 pieces of such uncultivated territory. In 1918 they ferreted out addi- tional vast areas. The total number of war gardens for this latter season is conservatively estimated, after a careful survey, at 5,285,000.
With war's destruction occurring to an undreamed of and terrifying extent, involving the destruction of all kinds of material wealth as well as food, it soon be- came apparent that food shortage was only one of many shortages the world was facing. Conservation of everything became a crying need. The war garden offered an opportunity for conservation along many lines. First came the conservation of food itself. The daily ration of a soldier in our army consists of about four and a quarter pounds of food. A million soldiers would require at least 4,250,000 pounds of food a day. At this rate a year's supply of food for a million men would weigh 1,551,250,000 pounds — and we were plan- ning to raise an army of four or five million men. To take from the ordinary channels of trade the colossal supplies necessary to feed such an army, with no extra food to replace that thus subtracted, would mean that householders would be forced to pay ruinously high prices for the food that remained. War gardening offered an opportunity to offset, in part, this tremen- dous drain on our commercial supplies, to eke out those supplies and make them go farther — which is really conservation in its truest sense.
16 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
War gardening promised to make many other things go farther. There was the matter of labor. There was only so much labor in existence. As the primary requisite of war, food would have the first call on labor, although other things besides food were needed. Cannon and shells and rifles and cartridges and uniforms and innumerable other articles were demanded in incom- prehensible quantities. After taking four or five mil- lion men away from productive industry, obviously we should not have sufficient man-power left to create all that was needed of these various supplies. War gar- dening, by adding to the food supply, released for work on these lines men who otherwise would have been nec- essary on the farms. In short, war gardening con- served labor by making labor go farther.
The conservation, however, did not end with lessening the number of men needed on the farms. Commercial foods must pass through many hands before reach- ing the consumer. They must go through the hands of the farmer, the railroader, the wholesaler, the retailer, the city deliveryman. For instance, a cabbage bought in the market is handled by almost all the men enumer- ated. A cabbage grown in the back yard is "Food F. O. B. the Kitchen Door." No one needs to handle it except the person who produces it for he or she is also the one who eats it. Suppose that the average back- yard garden produces only a hundred pounds of food, which is a ridiculously small estimate, as a single bushel of potatoes weighs sixty pounds. Based on this the 5,285,000 war gardens of 1918 yielded at least
What ate YOU doing?
THE KAISER niurnnn
i CANNED
"Write for Free Book to
NATIONAL WAR GARDEN COMMISSION
WASHINGTON , D . C .
A POSTER WHICH WAS USED FIRST IN 1918 AND WHICH, AMENDED —FOLLOWING GERMANY'S DEFEAT— WAS ALSO FORCEFUL IN 1919
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 17
528,285,000 pounds of food. Actually, as we shall see later, the yield was many times as great. Yet the hand- ling of that vast weight of provender called for hardly a single public carrier of goods. The army of men which otherwise would have been needed to transmit this food from producer to consumer was thus released for other essential labor. It probably would not be possible to figure just how much was accomplished in this manner by the war gardeners of the United States; but it is safe to say that the men thus released for other work numbered many thousands.
While this conservation of labor was being accom- plished there was a concurrent saving in still another way, through the release of thousands of freight-cars, motor-trucks, and wagons, for purposes other than the hauling of food. This saving, too, was most vital. At a time when every freight-car in the country was ur- gently needed for the hauling of raw materials to be used in the manufacture of munitions of war, for the transportation to the seacoast of finished products, and for hauling lumber and supplies to cantonments and army camps, it was essential that not one foot of freight space should be wasted. War gardening released thousands of cars for these essential needs. This saving, it must be remembered, involved also the conservation of coal and steam-power required in hauling, and pre- vented, as well, a great amount of wear and tear on railroad tracks and equipment.
To secure all these ends a campaign of education was necessary. This campaign had to be extensive in
1 8 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
range and intensive in method. As an educator of the masses there is no power equal to the public press; and from the start, the Commission, had the cordial cooper- ation of the newspapers and periodicals of the en tire coun- try. Inspiration and detailed instruction were furnished through the columns of the daily newspapers. Articles and feature stories which dealt with various phases of war gardening and sought to stimulate the movement to the utmost were also prepared and sent broadcast.
These appeals soon bore fruit. Requests for instruc- tion in gardening and in the organization of community gardening movements poured in from all sides. To the requests the Commission responded with carefully prepared pamphlets which gave the information de- sired. In addition, representatives of the Commission visited innumerable cities and towns to confer with the local chambers of commerce or other organizations which were directing gardening campaigns. As a re- sult of this propaganda, war gardens sprang up as though by magic. Gardening came to be the thing.
In order that all this enthusiasm might be trans- muted into substantial accomplishment, it was neces- sary that the army of would-be gardeners should have instruction, for many of them had never before handled a hoe or wielded a fork. Daily garden lessons were prepared therefore for the daily press. These lessons were short and simple, shorn of useless technicalities, but carefully prepared by experts. They were lack- ing in nothing essential. They gave the fundamentals of good garden practice, which would enable even a be-
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 19
ginner to make a success of his endeavor. In addition a book was printed explaining how to plant and care for the different vegetables. A copy of this book was free to any one upon request and several million copies have been given away in response to requests. Many copies were also distributed through the agency of libra- ries, chambers of commerce, trade bodies, women's clubs, banks, manufacturing concerns and the like. Thousands of letters of appreciation prove how help- ful were these books.
To encourage the conservation of garden products canning and drying manuals were prepared and dis- tributed through the same channels which had handled the garden books, and daily lessons on canning and dry- ing were sent to the newspapers for publication. The results were most gratifying. Editors everywhere devoted generous space to the articles sent them, in- cluding news stories, technical matter on canning and drying, and ample illustrations. Cartoonists, paragraph- ers, and writers of comics also made gardening their theme; and some of their productions the Commission scattered broadcast, to keep alive the interest in home food production and preservation.
Theprosepoem,sopopularthese days, was used to catch the eye and arouse the interest of "city farmers. " Here is. one, entitled "Let's Dig and Dig and We'll be Big:"
When I go down the village street in my perambu- lations, most every other chap I meet is asking for donations. They're seeking funds for Red Cross work, for hospitals and motors; they're holding up with con-
20 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
stant jerk, all wives and kids and voters. I'm helping out from day to day, with no delays or pauses, tobacco funds, Y. M. C. A. and other worthy causes. I'm told that war bonds I must buy, in twos and fours and dozens, enough to make a full supply for all my aunts and cousins. For war stamps, too, those signs of thrift, I dig into my pocket, to give my Uncle Sam a lift in cleaning up his docket. I'm taxed for building wooden ships with good, old-fashioned rigging, and in my little daily trips I'm constantly kept digging. I dig to pay tobacco tax, and tax for railway travel. I'm always chipping from my stacks; they keep me scratching gravel. But I've no kick for those who come with all their pleas beguiling. It never makes me sad nor glum. They always find me smiling. I know that I'm too old to fight; I can't be caught renigging. So I regard it just and right that I should keep on digging. And then besides, it's proved to me that every man is bigger if he will teach himself to be a willing war-time digger. It's not enough for us to sing about the joy of giving. We've got to dig for everything we need to keep on living. We've got to dig in our back yards for carrots, beans, and 'taters; we've got to dig both long and hard as garden cultivators. So take your trusty hoe and spade and start your spring-time sowing. Just dig and get a garden made and set the foodstuff growing.
In order to catch the attention of the man in the street, several striking posters were prepared by the Commission and placed in conspicuous places in com- munities in every part of the land. On bulletin-boards, in railway stations, libraries, stores, at factory entrances, and even in clubs, banks and commercial houses, these striking posters met the eye. They were also repro-
22 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
of the rapid growth of the war-garden movement was the spread of the idea to foreign countries. Advice was gladly given to foreign inquirers, the Commission furnishing detailed information concerning the methods which had resulted in such general enthusiasm for war gardening in the United States. In response to numer- ous requests which came to the Commission from all parts of the world, large quantities of printed matter, including garden and canning books, posters, and pamphlets, were sent broadcast throughout the world.
" Kia Ora, " the Maori way of saying, " Salutations to you all, " was the greeting which came to the Commis- sion from far-off New Zealand, in a letter of thanks from F. Carr Rollett, of the Auckland Herald, for data and material that had been sent. From Buenos Aires, Argen- tina, on the opposite side of the globe, C. D. Middle- brook, of the Sociedad Anonima La Blanca, wrote a hearty letter of appreciation for posters and other lit- erature sent, saying that the posters were prominently displayed on the occasion of the entertainment of two hundred American bluejackets who visited this South American capital. "Down here we appreciate this class of propaganda," said Mr. Middlebrook, "and we are in a position to exhibit the posters where they can readily be seen by the public. Practically every Ameri- can home and sympathizer displays them. We will do our part in making this propaganda public."
From South and Central American countries, from Cuba, India, China, Japan, the Philippines, Alaska, Hawaii, South Africa, and from a number of European
NO WONDER SHE SMILES Thousands of men and women who had never before the war raised
YITfj-r-fi ii-tr-4- «r. .**..A1* 1 3 * » JT • T~v . t -r-k • - - _. &1OCU
Courtesy Minneapolis Journal.
a cabbage or a
— ,„ „„„ ..wuu .. ,. iiv^ nctvj. iiv-vti uciuic i,iie war raisea a caDua&re or a ootc were just as much p eased as is Miss Dorothy Primm, of Minneapolis, over the results of th labor. 1 hey found that even amateurs could succeed.
)tato icir
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 23
nations came requests for information and instruction on war gardening: Even Lord Rhondda, as British Food Controller, cabled a request for 5,000 copies of the Commission's book on gardening.
No new movement could have spread with such ra- pidity and been rewarded with such results as were achieved, had it not been for the loyal and whole-hearted manner in which state, county and town committees and officials of all sorts, as well as numerous individuals, cooperated with and supplemented the work of the Commission. With this help the results surpassed the most sanguine anticipations of those who initiated the war-garden movement. The first season saw the plant- ing in the United States, according to the Commission's estimates based on reports from all parts of the country, of approximately 3,500,000 home food producing lots. The reports gathered in 1918 showed the number had increased to 5,285,000 war gardens.
Furthermore, there was more intensive cultivation and a greater proportion of large-yielding gardens in 1918 than during the preceding year. The food value of the 1917 products was estimated at something like $350,000,000. In the second year the value reached an estimated total of $525,000,000.
It is estimated, likewise, that as a result of the garden and canning campaigns, there were put up and stored away on pantry shelves in 1917 more than 500,000,000 quarts of canned vegetables and fruits; while in 1918 the number of such jars is believed to have been fully 1,450,000,000.
Assuredly tall oaks from little acorns grow.
CHAPTER III HOW WAR GARDENS HELPED
EVERY GARDENER BECAME A SOLDIER OF THE SOIL
WHAT the "three R's" mean to preparation for a life of peace, the three M's become in the conduct of war. These three M's stand for men, money and munitions. In its broadest sense, the term munitions includes everything needed by an army, and of all an army's needs the basic and most im- portant is food.
The quantities of food required by our army are huge. Dietitians estimate that the average man needs, daily, food that will furnish 3,500 calories. The United States army ration allows 4,700 calories to each man, and the unusual exertions demanded of our soldiers make it quite necessary that they have this generous allow- ance of food. With less they might lack that abundant supply of muscular and nervous energy upon which their very lives depend.
Stated in terms of avoirdupois, the United States army ration is slightly in excess of four and a quarter pounds of food a man per diem. Four pounds of food does not seem like a great quantity. It allows each soldier twenty ounces of fresh beef a day, or its equiv- alent in fresh mutton, bacon, fish, turkey or other meat; eighteen ounces of flour or bread; twenty ounces of potatoes with proportionate amounts of other vege-
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 25
tables; 3.2 ounces of sugar; 2.4 ounces of beans or 1.6 ounces of hominy or rice; and prunes, apples, peaches, jam, milk, coffee, butter, and so forth, in smaller quantities.
When these amounts are multiplied by a million, the total bulks as huge as the Rockies. It means 4,250,000 pounds of food daily, for seven days a week, and for fifty-two weeks each year. To feed an army of 1,000,000 men for one month, according to the quartermaster's department of the United States army, there are re- quired 973,000 pounds of butter, 1,000,000 cans of corned beef, 1,000,000 cans of corned-beef hash, 2,000,000 cans of beef, 2,400,000 pounds of coffee, 3,000,000 pounds of sugar, 6,000,000 pounds of bacon, 23,000,000 pounds of frozen beef, 37,500,000 pounds of flour, and other articles in proportion.
As the United States raised an army of 4,000,000 men, the quantity of food that had to be provided was four times as great as the amounts named or 3,892,000 pounds of butter, 4,000,000 cans of corned beef, 4,000,- ooo cans of corned-beef hash, 8,000,000 cans of beef, 9,600,000 pounds of coffee, 12,000,000 pounds of sugar, 24,000,000 pounds of bacon, 92,000,000 pounds of frozen beef, and 150,000,000 pounds of flour, not to mention the "and so forths." This huge total sufficed to feed our completed army for one month only.
A year's supply for this completed army required, in round numbers, 46,704,000 pounds of butter, 48,000,- ooo cans of corned beef, 48,000,000 cans of corned- beef hash, 96,000,000 cans of beef, 115,200,000 pounds
26 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
of coffee, 144,000,000 pounds of sugar, 288,000,000 pounds of bacon, 1,104,000,000 pounds of frozen beef, and 1,800,000,000 pounds of flour.
So huge are these figures that to the average person they are meaningless, but that these army demands constituted a terrific drain on our commercial food supplies was evident to everybody. Practically all of this food was food diverted from its accustomed chan- nels. Not an ounce of it went to the feeding of the civilian population which formerly had practically all of it. At the same time, if our allies were to be saved from utter collapse through hunger, and our own country saved from the plight of having to carry on the war single-handed and alone, it was essential that greater quantities of food be sent to Europe than Amer- ica had ever before exported. After the war ended, and it became necessary, in some measure, to provide for the population of the enemy countries, still larger de- mands for food for export were to be expected. The very causes that had produced these conditions had, as we have seen, so stripped the farms of men that a food production commensurate with the needs of the situation was an impossibility.
"Those who cultivated the soil could hardly do more than they were doing," said Luther Burbank, a member of the National War Garden Commission, in speaking of the matter. "It was becoming evident that food, which before had been taken as a matter of course, was in reality the foundation of all life, all know- ledge, all progress. What could be done? It became
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 27
necessary to conserve carefully what already had been produced, and then produce more. Agriculture and horticulture had not generally been taught in the schools ; the old hit-or-miss plan of farming was all too common; the home garden was neglected and the school garden a novelty. To the call both to conservation and to increased production, the American people have re- sponded nobly. How quickly they have changed their attitude, how splendidly they have made good by adapting themselves to the new conditions! When the war garden movement was started, the problem of food production was on the way to be solved."
Here, then, was the all-impelling, the all-important reason back of the home food production movement. This was the outstanding motive above all others which made the war garden a thing not only to be desired but actually to be demanded. Our allies and the neu- trals, as far as possible, as well as our own people and our army, must be fed: — this was the cry from the tower-top, this the call of hungry peoples which had to be answered. Our task was Herculean!
There was one great difficulty in the road to accom- plishment: the problem of common psychology. It is recorded that when God called Moses to lead his fellows forth from Egypt, Moses replied: "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharoah, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" Even so did the average American regard the appeal made to him to raise food and save the world from starvation. The difficulty was that the average American, like the
28 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
deliverer of Israel, lacked imagination. He could not visualize the collective contributions of millions of back-t yard and vacant-lot gardens. He was like the little girl, who, when asked to save a slice of bread to help feed the army, replied: "Papa, I don't see any reason why I should save a slice of bread. It can't feed an army." Her father took her down to the harbor in New York City and showed her a great transport at the wharf, waiting for food to carry to Europe. He then told her that if every little schoolgirl in the United States saved a slice of bread a day, their combined savings would fill eight large transports every week. Her blue eyes opened wide as the great truth flashed upon her, and after that she didn't want to eat anything at all.
In his nursery days, the average American had learned that
Little drops of water, little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land.
Unfortunately, however, that infantile lesson had been put away with other childish things when he be- came a man. The task the National War Garden Com- mission set itself was to make the average American feel the full truth, the actual force, of that childhood jingle. The truth — the truth that was to set us free — was striking enough. Among the garden records of the National War Garden Commission is the story of a cer- tain garden in Pennsylvania, which was very much like other American back-yard gardens in many respects.
IN AN ITALIAN GARDEN
In New Haven, Connecticut, the side lawn of a handsome home was converted into a food plot. In addition to growing a lot of vegetables, so delighted was the owner that she said never again would her family be without the pleasure which this experience had given them.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 29
In size it was 40x40 feet. The gardener kept a careful record during one entire year of the quantities of food produced in that garden. His figures are as follows:
Beets — 25 bunches Cucumbers — 100
Carrots — 2 pecks Celery — 450 stalks
Radishes — 15 bunches Rhubarb — 10 bunches
Rutabagas— -64 Scallions — 12 bunches
Early peas — 32 quarts (pods) Parsley — used freely
Potatoes — 7 pecks Dried beans for winter use — 20 quarts
Cabbage — 20 heads Peaches, from two trees in corner of Cauliflower — 14 heads garden — 7 baskets
Tomatoes — 6 baskets Lettuce — equivalent of 60 heads
Bunch beans — 2>£ pecks Horseradish — all desired
Telephone peas — 40 quarts (pods) Onion sets — 3 quarts
Peppers — 9 dozen Onions dried — ^ bushel Pole beans — 108 quarts
If this production, such as could be had from any ordinary back-yard garden with good soil, were reduced to pounds and ounces, it would be found that this one yard had yielded considerably more than half a ton of foodstuffs. It is reckoned that there are more than 20,000,000 families in the United States. If every family could have a garden, and each garden could yield half a ton of food, the total annual produc- tion would aggregate 10,000,000 tons, or almost twice as much in weight as we normally shipped to Europe in a year in pre-war days. Of course it was not pos- sible for each of our 20,000,000 families to have a gar- den, but with 45 per cent, of our people living in the country or in small towns, and with such vast areas of vacant lots in the larger cities, it would be entirely possible to have 10,000,000 war gardens. These gar- dens, could they produce at the rate of this Pennsyl- vania garden, would yearly supply in weight as much food as before the war we annually shipped to Europe.
30 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
Such were the possibilities of garden production that stimulated the National War Garden Commission to maximum effort.
Of course, garden food does not possess, pound for pound, anything like the food value of the concentrated foods sent to our allies and to our armies, but garden food is provender, and it is wholesome food. Peas and beans are great meat-conservers ; potatoes, both sweet and white, important cereal-savers; and a little larger bulk of many garden products, such as potatoes, will take the place of a smaller quantity of meat or other concentrated foods. To figure out the exact food val- ues of the total products that might be raised in our gardens is of course both impossible and unnecessary. The point is that millions of pounds of food could be produced right in our own yards and in neighboring vacant lots and that by eating these foods we should so lessen the demand on our commercial supplies that these would be sufficient to meet the heavy demands upon them.
To reach the entire population of the United States, to convince one hundred million people of the necessity of gardening, and to convince them to the point of action, was such a colossal task that the Commission hardly dared to hope for the creation of more than one million war gardens during the first year of its activ- ities. Yet the estimated total was in excess of 3,000,000; and in 1918 a very careful canvass set the number of such gardens at 5,285,000.
What these war gardens actually accomplished to-
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 31
ward feeding the army was shown by a careful estimate as to the amount of food which they added to the nation's larder. This was reckoned in 1918 as having a value of $525,000,000. Taking into consideration equivalent food values, it was figured on a conserva- tive basis that our 1918 war gardens grew food equal in body-building power to the meat ration required by an army of 1,000,000 men for 302 days; the bread ration for 248 days; or the entire ration for 142 days. This wonderful saving of commercial supplies made the war-garden movement eminently worth while from this standpoint alone.
Munitions represent only one of the three M's. Money is another. Money makes the army as well as the mare go. The value produced by home gardeners went far to meet the increasing demands for money due to the war. To realize the wonderful financial possi- bilities of war gardening is almost as difficult as to grasp the possibilities of food production. The prod- ucts of the little Pennsylvania garden already referred to were worth, according to the records of the gardener, $63.50. That valuation was made at pre-war prices. The same products, in 1918, would have been worth probably half as much again, or close to $100.00. Even if its products were worth only $50.00 that sum would have enabled the gardener to buy, with the money saved by gardening, a Liberty Bond.
Suppose all our war gardens averaged as well, what would be the result? The 5,285,000 gardens of 1918 would have yielded $264,250,000. Actually, the re*-
32 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
suits were almost do'uble that figure, the estimated value of our war-garden crops for 1918 having been $525,000,000! A half billion dollars! Enough to cover the expenses of the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., and all other similar war-work agencies for a long time; or to build 500 great ships; or to pay for one-twelfth of the fourth Liberty Loan issue!
In thousands of cases his war garden meant to its owner the difference between ability and inability to subscribe to a war loan. There were more than 21,000,- ooo subscribers to the fourth Liberty Loan. The esti- mate of war-garden production means that the money saved through war gardening enabled at least one- fourth of these subscribers to become holders of their country's war-purpose bonds.
Of the three M's there yet remains the third — men. Just as money saved through gardening can be used for the purchase of bonds instead of food, so labor saved in one field can be shifted to another. Specifically, men released from food handling were free for service else- where. And the name of the men so released through war gardening is legion. The products of the little Pennsylvania garden already discussed, weighed in excess of half a ton. Had these products not been raised at home, it would have been necessary to bring their equivalent to the gardener's home. He has a family of three. Families of three do not buy food in half-ton lots — seldom even in one-hundred-pound lots. To put an equivalent amount of food in his home, there- fore, would have required many trips on the part of a
MEDAL IN COMMEMORATION OF THE WAR GARDEN In recognition of the war time service of the War Garden a commemora- tive medal was struck by the National War Garden Commission for presentation to the rulers of the United States, England, France, Belgium and Italy. The illustration at the top of this page shows the obverse of this medal. The lower picture is a reproduction of the reverse.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 33
deliveryman, certainly not less than twenty-five. If every war gardener who made enough out of his garden to buy a Liberty Bond also saved his deliveryman twenty-five trips, the total saving of labor was enor- mous. The number of persons employed, before the war, solely to wait on other persons, was beyond belief. Soon after the United States entered the war, merchants began to face a readjustment of their business. It was estimated that in New York City alone simplification of delivery and clerk systems would release 100,000 men for service in the army. In the aggregate, war gardening aided to an incredible extent in this readjustment.
Nor are these all the benefits conferred by war gar- dening. Nothing is more essential to success in war than the creation and maintenance of an ardent patriotic spirit. War gardening fostered this spirit by enabling so many individuals not actually in the army to do some- thing tangible in the struggle. Millions of patriots joined the army of the soil because of their deep love for their country, and their desire to help in the hour of need.
Many of the slogans sent ringing throughout the country by the Commission breathed the spirit of America and of democracy. That spirit spoke from the Commission's posters and other matter. War garden- ers were called on by the beautiful figure of Liberty to "Sow the Seeds of Victory." Another slogan, a clever paraphrase on the title of a famous song, told them to " Keep the Home Soil Turning. " West Virginia started the message: "Food Must Follow the Flag," which became a household word throughout the United
34 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
States. The Marion (Indiana) War Garden Associa- tion placed it squarely up to the home food producers in this fashion: "Earn the Right to Stay at Home — Plant a Garden. " The honored title of "Soldier of the Soil" gave the home tiller the feeling that he, too, was performing a service for his country although he was not wearing the uniform; and when he was informed that "Every Garden is a Munition Plant" he knew that he was helping the boys over there to fight their battles, for "The Seeds of Victory Insure the Fruits of Peace." The patriotic spirit is contagious and the war gardener helped mightily to spread it.
Of especial value to the nation in its days of need was the habit of thrift engendered and built up into a com- mon trait by home gardening. Before the war, it is esti- mated, there were only 300,000 bond-buyers in the United States. More than 21,000,000 people subscribed to the fourth Liberty Loan. The significance of that fact is splendidly summed up in a single sentence by Fred H. Goff, president of the Cleveland Trust Com- pany and a member of the National War Garden Com- mission. "A nation that saves," says he, "is a nation saved. " Truly, war gardening is as full of hidden bless- ings as the widow's cruse was of oil.
WE HAVE A
War G arden
National War Garden Commission
WASHINGTON, D. C.
THE WAR GARDENER'S BOAST
To war gardeners throughout the United States the National War Garden Commission furnished
window hangers, printed in green to symbolize growing vegetation. These were proudly
displayed in the front windows of several million homes.
CHAPTER IV TYPES OF WAR GARDENS
How DIFFERENT PEOPLE PLANNED TO PLANT AND WIN THE WAR
ON plaster and ash-filled ground only a few feet above the rumbling subway in New York City was a war garden. From this little vegetable plot in Bryant Park, where land is valued at some- thing like $20,000 a square foot, to the tiny garden along the railroad right of way near the tops of the White Mountains, is a far, far cry. Yet both spots had their war gardens. The one in Bryant Park was a demonstration garden, started solely for educational purposes. Here representatives of the National War Garden Commission preached the gospel of gardening and freely gave helpful advice and garden primers to passing inquirers. On the other hand the tiny garden on the cloud-capped slope of the White Mountains was wholly utilitarian. A patriotic hand had planted it, and loving fingers tended it, in the hope that it would bring forth, perhaps, a few dollars' worth of food; in the belief that its product would lessen, though ever so little, the pressure on our commercial food supplies, from which alone our allies could draw sustenance.
The same spirit of helpfulness, of readiness to "do one's bit" animated countless other Americans. So the war garden was found in tiny clearings beside the
35
36 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
logging camps of Louisiana, in irrigated plots among the arid sands of New Mexico, in the rugged iron lands of Minnesota, and on the open, fertile stretches of
the Middle West. Even the lighthouse-keeper at Santa Cruz, California, planted a little garden under the shadow of his protecting shaft. From coast to coast, and from lake to gulf, little areas that had been barren as the desert suddenly blos-
Victory gardens produce dollars somed like the TOSC. Be-
hind each of these innumerable gardens was a heart animated by the desire to serve God and country.
When the National War Garden Commission sent forth the slogan "Plan to Plant and Win the War," the majority of gardens started in re- sponse were of the indi- vidual type. Like stars in a mighty flag, they dot- ted the rolling landscape from ocean to ocean. There were few town and village homes that did not have some space available for war gardening. Even in densely populated cities, a goodly proportion of the inhabi-
There is no distinctive type of victory gardener
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
37
tants each had at command at least a few square feet that could be cultivated. And urban dwellers by the hundred thousands found vacant lots near their homes which could be utilized for food production. This great host of individuals, each working like his fellows for a common purpose, carried on what, in the aggre- gate, was a vast farming operation.
In no previous war did women play so great a part as they did in the world war. Not only did hosts of them make mu- nitions in factories, but
Other hosts joined the Draw on your back-yard type of bank
men in the production of that other sort of munitions — the kind that grows in gardens. With the women who served as nurses, ambulance drivers, canteen helpers, and munition makers, should also be ranked the women gardeners. In thousands of instances- women gardeners cultivated entirely, even to the extent of doing the dig- ging, the home food plot, while in thousands of other instances they shared with the men the task of caring for the war gardens.
Thousands of letters have come to the National War Garden Commission from women gardeners. In order that the fine service rendered by such women may not be forgotten, some of these communications are in- cluded in this record. A letter from Mrs. T. J. Ulery,
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
of Seattle, Washington, whose husband wore his country's uniform, well shows the spirit that animated these women gardeners:
"Thanks for the war vegetable gardening booklet you sent me in the spring," she says. "My husband is in the navy and I have two small babies, but that did
not keep me from raising a garden. We have a plot fifty by two hundred feet, and every inch is in something. I wish you could see it. I weigh ninety-eight pounds but I am going to do my bit. Now I wish you would send me your home can-
This type of green goods will cure the blues ning and drying book."
From Mrs.G.P.Dutcher, of Arlington, Massachusetts, came this other typical communication : " I was seventy- eight years old on March thirty-first. I expect to raise what beans I need for a family of three for the next year. I did it last year and did all my own planting."
We see the significance and worth of this woman's service when we realize that a day's rations for one million United States soldiers includes 75,000 pounds of beans, and that we raised an army of approximately four million men! This enormous demand for beans had to be met from commercial supplies that could be increased, because of labor shortage, only slightly above the pre-war production. So we had the army
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
39
ffat
An office type of victory garden
bidding against the civilian population, with the result- ant tremendous increase in price. Assuredly this old lady was doing her share toward remedying the situation. And that is exactly what was done by the cultiva- tor of every war garden. Few of the women gar- deners had reached their allotted three score years and ten. Most of our women gardeners were younger, and among these younger women soldiers of the soil none performed a more interesting or val- uable service than the eight school teachers and office workers who ventured, like the pioneers of old, into a new
country, blazing the way for those who should come after them. Their chosen field of garden effort was the raising of vegetables for a summer hotel.
Up at the Dixville Notch, in the White Mountains in northern New Hampshire, is a mag-
Suit your type of garden to your job nificent Summer hotel,
The Balsams. It was customary to ship in from a considerable distance the bulk of its vegetable supply.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
Where there's a will there's a victory garden type
Last summer the eight young women referred to culti- vated a three-acre garden at Dixville Notch, on the property of the hotel corporation. They lived in one
of the company's attrac- tive little houses which looks out over a great ex- panse of country. From Brooklyn, New York, Lakewood, New Jersey, Rockland, Maine, and Keene, New Hampshire, came these young women farmers. They were farm- ers in more than name; for in addition to culti- vating their large vegetable garden, they found time to assist the neighboring men farmers in making hay, culti- vating potatoes, and per- forming other farm labor. The desire to serve, not the wish to have a good time, led these young women to engage in this work; and so successfully did they perform their tasks that the hotel man- agement promptly ar- ranged tO Continue and Put your heart into your own
expand the work in future years. Thus, in addition to upbuilding themselves physically in the most gratify-
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
ing way, these young women opened the way for others of their sex to perform service at once essential and useful. How useful may be judged when we rea- lize that but for their work it would have been neces- sary to haul hundreds of bushels of garden-stuff long distances over the steep mountain grades. The car- space and fuel thus saved were applied to the haul- ing of shells and cannon and other supplies that our soldiers so much needed. If "they also serve who only stand and wait," how much greater is the service of those who labor while they wait.
Since the labor of these Eveiy ^Pe can have smooth sailins young women marks a new phase of food production, in this country, a phase that is certain to appeal more and more to tired school teachers, clerks, and other in- door workers, it may not be amiss to tell in detail of the life of these girls at Dixville Notch.
Their home was in a cozy little cottage, from the windows of which one could look off in any direction on most beautiful mountain scenery. It was situated only a few miles south of the Canadian border, in a region whose towering mountains are pine-clad and gemmed with clear, cool lakes and embroidered with foaming mountain brooks. The girls received regular monthly wages from the hotel, but provided their own
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
meals, with the privilege, however, of purchasing supplies from the hotel at favorable rates. Two at a time they kept house, while the other six looked after the gardens. None of these girls had had any previous experience worth mentioning in the cultivation of the soil. Yet they made very rapid progress in the art of gardening.
Their success was un- doubtedly due to the fact that they stuck to a few staple crops and did not attempt too diversified gardening. They raised peas, lettuce, radishes, carrots, beans, and other common vegetables. Upon beginning their work they
A type of victory garden to brag about received instructions f rom
the hotel farmer, Henry Bemis, who looks after some of the larger tracts of land owned by the hotel manage- ment, which are given over almost exclusively to the raising of hay for the dairies. Such instruction was not long necessary, however, as the young women farmers speedily acquired considerable skill.
Even gardening and haying did not occupy all their time. One rainy day, when no gardening could be done they went to a neighboring farm where there were several thousand bushels of potatoes which had begun to sprout. The visitors started " sprouting" with a will and at the end of the day had averaged twenty- five bushels each. They were told that ten bushels had
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
43
always been regarded as a fair day's "sprout." They continued at this task until the entire lot of potatoes was finished. Then they assisted other farmers whose potatoes were sprouting; for labor had become as scarce on New Hamp- shire farms as it was on farms everywhere else.
Thus these women not only blazed a trail for their sisters, but proved what thousands of other women are proving in in- dustry that Woman not The community type of victory garden
only is not an inferior workman, but that her nervous make-up enables her to work faster than man. These
^ women gardeners did their •**1 share in the fight for free- -^ ^ dom — not merely that poli- tical equality forwhich men and women struggled on the fields of Europe, but that greater freedom, hu- man equality. Even to that cause has the war gar- den contributed materially. If the work of these young women proved anything, it was that in union there is strength. The strength that comes from union it was found advantageous to utilize in many another
The sun shines for all types of garden
44
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
war garden, by operating it on the community plan. Instead of allowing each gardener to till his own land, it was better, where possible, to have a large area prop- erly plowed and har- rowed and then allow the gardener to care for his individual plot. The ad- vantages of such com- munity action proved great. The land was
y (flj[ uniformly and properly 'Kj-jy^Q3 £m3r prepared and at small
• expense. Community
ic crowded city has many types gardening made for both
better gardens and better communities, for the spirit of emulation at once led each gardener to do his best, while common toil for a com- mon end made for better understanding and better acquaintanceship; and sympathetic understand- ing is the rock upon which democracy is founded.
Much of the gardening done by employes of facto- ries and business houses was of the community sort. The well-worked ^e involves no doubt Unused tracts of land lying near mill or shop, and not needed for business purposes, were divided among em- ployes for gardening, after being properly plowed and
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 45
harrowed. Often it happened that the land available would not accommodate all the men applying for plots, and in such cases employers frequently leased additional near-by lands and turned them over to their employes. The mutual interests so engendered created a more friendly feeling of cooperation not only among the men themselves, but also between the management and the employes. This was particularly true where, as hap- pened in many cases, the heads of large concerns be- came fellow-gardeners with their employes. Burns has told us the secret of democracy in a single sentence: "A man's a man for a' that!" When men get together and work together for a common end, they learn the fundamental lesson of democracy. Thus the commu- nity war gardening which sprang up in so many parts of the land accomplished more, far more, than the pro- duction of so much provender, useful as that strictly utilitarian end undoubtedly was. Unquestionably, community gardening will continue. It will be the peace-time descendant of the war garden.
CHAPTER V UNCLE SAM'S FIRST WAR GARDEN
HOW THE BOYS AT CAMP DlX WENT OVER THE To?
WITH the mention of the word "war" there im- mediately flashes across the mind a vision of long lines of soldiers marching through streets crowded with flag-waving civilians; or of those same long lines drilling, wheeling, and maneuvering on the camp parade-ground; or of stern-taced fighters with bayonets fixed charging across a smoke-clouded field toward the enemy's positions. It was most appropriate and fitting, therefore, that the term "war garden" should come to be associated with actual soldiers.
It was at Camp Dix, New Jersey, that the first sure- enough war garden was planted. At that big army cantonment there was begun the first big undertaking in the United States whereby the American army started to help feed itself.
Early in the spring of 1918 the National War Garden Commission, cooperating with the conservation and reclamation division of the Quartermaster-General's office, effected the plans which promptly led to the plant- ing of a four-hundred-acre war garden at Camp Dix, that city of 48,000 or more soldiers where men were being prepared for overseas duty. This was a demon- stration garden which was not only the largest but also
the most picturesque the country had seen. It was not 46
>-v •> ; v;,v: • 4 ^•'A
I I
[E WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 47
only great in size, but in the consequences that were to come from it. This important innovation in methods of supplying the quartermaster's store with part of the food needed, not only had the backing of the officers in charge, but also received the hearty commendation of the Secretary of War. It proved of value in many ways.
At practically all the army camps, there were con- siderable amounts of land not required for actual mil- itary purposes. These plots varied from a few hundred to several thousand acres. There was, however, no fund available under the War Department or army appropriations which could be used for the purpose of placing this land under cultivation and carrying on the work.
At Camp Dix there were 400 acres inside the reser- vation which could be immediately utilized for food production. Colctoel J. S. Fair, assistant to the Acting Quatermaster-General, and head of the conservation and reclamation division, helped to work out and gave his active support to the plan of planting a garden at this place. When it was found that the land could be used and that Lieutenant-Colonel Edmond Tompkins, then Camp Quartermaster, had the men available, the National War Garden Commission secured nine big motor-trucks and rushed over from Philadelphia, thirty miles distant, thirty plows and other garden tools, seeds, fertilizer, and other needed material. The final arrangements were completed on one day, and on the following day the supplies were on hand.
The Commission's demonstration war garden at
48 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
Camp Dix was a success from the start. It furnished an inspiration and gave impetus to the work all over the United States; and soon similar plots growing "Food F. O. B. the Mess Tent Door" were under way in a number of other camps. Thousands of war gardeners redoubled their efforts because of the knowledge that the men in the American army were doing similar patriotic work. "Over the Top with the Boys at Camp Dix!" became a new slogan which aroused genuine enthusi- asm and put new spirit into the back-yard and vacant- lot tillage.
After the Commission had provided the means for starting the project, Lieutenant-Colonel Tompkins placed it in the hands of Captain E. V. Champlin, con- servation and reclamation Offficer of the camp, and the latter selected as farm officer Lieutenant John F. Bon- ner, an energetic young officer who was a graduate of an agricultural college and who had also enjoyed a practical farming experience.
Major-General Hugh L. Scott, commanding officer at Camp Dix, took a keen personal interest in the proj- ect. He made several trips of inspection over the gardens, accompanied on two of these occasions by Mrs. Scott, to see how the work was progressing and to encourage the young officers in charge. He expressed his appreciation to Captain Champlin and to Lieutenant Bonner, actively in charge of the farm enterprise, and to their assistants, for the excellent results they were obtaining. His interest caused the boys to work with an added will.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 49
One hundred and forty acres were planted to pota- toes, both early and late varieties; seventy acres to beans; forty to corn; twelve to beets; twelve to onions; eight to cucumbers; five to tomatoes; one to cabbage; and other areas to a variety of vegetables. The land on which the camp was located had been farms, on which there were a number of orchards. These were cared for and the fruit gathered. In addition, about three hundred tons of hay were harvested. The garden even included an acre of broom-corn, which the supply officer in charge of purchasing brooms figured saved many a dollar. The boys, however, maintained that their reward from this particular corner of the garden came from the help rendered in " sweeping on to Berlin."
Aside from the food produced, the Camp Dix war garden was of benefit in other ways. It afforded healthful outdoor work for convalescents and other men who were not physically fit for active military training, but who after a few weeks or months of this exercise were able to go back into the fighting ranks. Colonel F. B. Beauchamp, inspector of the southern command of the British army, who had come to the United States on a tour of inspection of the camps here, pointed out what this form of work was accomplishing for many men in the British army, and how thousands of them were being so benefited by the regular living in the camps and the life in the open that they were able to return to service on the battle-field.
In addition to using convalescents and men not physically capable of service overseas the camp garden
50 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
afforded opportunity for putting "conscientious ob- jectors" and alien enemies to work at some useful non- combatant form of labor. Among the first 150 men assigned to the war-garden work at Camp Dix were a number of Germans and Austrians, two Turks, and representatives of other nationalities. Drafted men of this sort, having declared themselves unwilling to take up arms against their own countrymen, were almost without exception happy and contented in their work as food producers. In some cases alien prisoners were transported to army camps to till the gardens. The first lot was sent from Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, to Camp Devens, Massachusetts, for this purpose. At the camp, under guard, they cultivated a war garden of ninety acres. There were one hundred of these pris- oners, most of whom had been taken from interned German vessels.
As a result of the. immediate success of the Camp Dix project, plans were made foij greatly extending this form of war gardening in 1919. The work had proved its worth as an adjunct to army life. A number of military men who had not approved of the plan at its inception were converted by the excellence of the re- sults obtained and gave it their support. The ex- perience gained in the first year, coupled with the greater demand which it was known that there would be for food, made it desirable that this scheme be carried out on a broad scale. It was realized that it would furnish much relief in supplying the army and the nation with food.
Copyright Western Newspaper Union.
GATHERING THE POTATOES
This staple article formed the principal crop from the 4OO-acre war garden which was inaugu- rated at Camp Dix, New Jersey, by the National War Garden Commission in cooperation with the Quartermaster General's Office of the army. More than 5,000 bushels of the tubers were grown.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 51
Shortly after the Camp Dix war garden was started, Secretary Baker gave the undertaking his hearty en- dorsement in the following letter addressed to the National War Garden Commission:
The War Department finds much satisfaction in the creation of war gardens at various army camps by the Conservation and Reclamation Division of the Quarter- master-General's office. Food production at these camps has been the subject of some concern with the Department. The large areas of tillable land within many of the military reservations have been regarded as offering potential food production on a large scale, and I feel that the army is to be congratulated that the utilization of this space has now taken concrete form.
Camp war gardens will serve more than one useful purpose. The production of food at the mess door is of great importance in that it not only lessens the army's demand on the usual sources of supply but eliminates transportation as well.
To the National War Garden Commission I extend the thanks of the Department for its quick response to the appeal of the Quartermaster-General's office for cooperation. Not confining itself to. mere compliance with the letter of the request, the Commission entered fully into its spirit. At a time when funds were not available through Government channels the Commis- sion voluntarily provided seed, fertilizers, and equip- ment which made possible the establishment of a war garden of 300 acres or more at Camp Dix. For this generous contribution and for swift action to overcome the handicap of a late start I take pleasure in making this acknowledgment and in expressing the hope that the Camp Dix war garden of the National War Garden Commission will prove an unqualified success.
52 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
Thus, in teeming army camps and on isolated moun- tain-tops, on the wide reaches of the prairies and in sun-splashed openings in the dusky forests; beside roaring factories and in sequestered nooks on which deer and bear peer shyly from near-by leafy coverts, there have sprung up innumerable war gardens. In riding across the country one sees them beside the rail- road right of way, in back yards, small and great, on lawns and in open fields, in every conceivable place and of every imaginable size — sees these living emblems that tell, as truly as the tiny Liberty Loan button on the coat-lapel, where the owner stands and what he stands for, because a war garden is a service badge of living green.
As
Copyright Western Newspaper Union
GOING OUT TO MEET THE CROP
"the man who feeds the army" Col. J. W. Mclntosh, chief of subsistence, was deeply interested
in the demonstration war garden made by the soldiers at Camp Dix. His interest in the
food supply prompted him to go into the fields at Camp Dix and the camera
caught him as he helped camp Quartermaster Tompkins pick
tomatoes. Col. Mclntosh is at the left.
CHAPTER VI HOW BIG BUSINESS HELPED
ORGANIZED EFFORT TO CAN THE KAISER
LIKE that young man of great possessions who came to Christ, inquiring, "What shall I do to be saved?" hundreds of men who possessed or represented immense wealth, captains of industry and leaders of big business, came forward in this pres- ent-day struggle against pharisaism and demanded: "What can we do to help?" In their desire to back up the government, they were ready to do anything possible to increase the efficiency of either their works or their workers.
Even before the war began, a few manufacturing concerns had started community gardening among their employes, though the number of such enterprises was small. Once the war-time need of food was pointed out, however, business and industrial plants in every part of the country organized their men for garden production.
Happiness has been defined as a by-product of labor. Straightway the concern engaged in the war-garden movement found that it, too, had a valuable by-prod- uct, and that was increased efficiency among the workers. It was not alone through the addition of certain amounts of food products to the nation's sup- plies that war gardening proved valuable. It reacted
53
54 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
on the spirit of the workers themselves. It built up a feeling of good-fellowship not previously existing. It engendered a spirit of cooperation that carried over into the work of the shop. It created that intangible and invaluable thing, esprit de corps. It was produc- tive of many good results throughout entire communi- ties, which were reflected in the general financial and social conditions within those communities.
No less marked were the gains from the employers' point of view. The contented workman is the efficient workman; and gardening, by providing better food than can be had in the markets, and by virtually adding to the worker's income, makes him more contented. Money that otherwise would have to be spent for lood can be used for the purchase of those small comforts and luxuries that make for added happiness in the home.
Of great worth, too, is the recreational value of gardening. The toiler in a noisy mill, or the worker in a smoky forge or factory can find no avocation, no recreation, that will build him up physically and refresh his energies as will the cultivation of a plot of ground.
Unexpectedly enough, also, war gardening resulted in a lessening of the labor turnover. One striking testi- monial on this latter point was contained in a report to the Commission from a busy manufacturing city in the Middle West. "Workers here," said this report, "re- fused to leave the city to take work at higher wages elsewhere because they had planted fine war gardens and were so proud of them they would not leave them. "
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 55
Moreover, the knowledge that his employer is inter- ested in his welfare inevitably creates a kindlier feel- ing on the part of an employe toward his employer. When officials of large concerns worked side by side with their men in the factory gardens, as many far-seeing managers did, a sympathetic understanding sprang up that could have been created in scarcely any other way. War gardening gave opportunity for the "per- sonal touch" which manufacturing on a large scale and collective bargaining have almost eliminated from modern industry.
Perhaps these things can best be made clear by quoting a captain of industry. Speaking not only for himself, but also for other leaders of "big business," the superintendent of Foster, Merriam & Company, of Meriden, Connecticut, wrote as follows to the National War Garden Commission, after war gardening had been tried out for a year at his plant:
Besides the material gain, the garden work promoted a fine spirit of democracy and fellowship among the men. Everybody, from the president to the humblest employe, had a garden plot. And officers and employes, working together as they did, fourid mutual interests and fellowship there. The employes took a great deal of interest in the work and kept the entire ten acres in perfect shape, free from weeds, and well cared for at all times. Owing to the interest manifested and the good results obtained, it will be necessary to secure additional land next year.
Among the large companies which helped their men in this way was the Carnegie Steel Company. Here is
56 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
what the superintendent of one of the Carnegie plants wrote the National War Garden Commission:
The plots were taken by men in all classes of employ- ment. Laborers, skilled operators, clerks, and execu- tives— a large number of them without previous experi- ence— went into the work. A great variety of produce was raised. Much spirit and rivalry developed among the gardeners, this being increased by the offer of prizes for the best gardens. In spite of the fact that the river twice flooded part of the gardens during the growing season, two of the prizes were taken by workers in the flooded areas. The general average of the gardens was above eighty per cent., and thirteen of them above eighty-four per cent. Only one was adjudged a failure. The committee of judges was compelled to revisit the gardens twice after the first marking in order to decide on the winners, and even then had to place several of them on a par.
The gardens were not only an assistance to livelihood and a decided profit to the average worker, but were also an inspiration and fascination, as well as a means of pleasure and healthful education and exercise.
From the rock-bound coasts of New England to the far-flung shores of the Pacific, the war gardens of the workers in industry stretched in an almost unbroken line. The lumber camps of Washington and Oregon and the mining settlements of Arizona boasted their war gardens. The iron, cement and motor-car makers of the Middle West had their garden plots. The cop- per regions of Michigan, the shipyards of Texas, and the roaring mills of the East, all beheld the sudden up- springing of great gardens.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 57
"Our purpose is to encourage the raising of fresh vegetables at the mills and logging camps of this state and Oregon where employes are engaged in the pro- duction of essential war material for shipping and air- craft purposes," was the inspiring word from Robert B. Allen, of Seattle, secretary of the West Coast Lum- bermen's Association. C. S. Williams, vice-president of the F. B. Williams Cypress Company, of Patterson, Louisiana, reported thus to the Commission:
We are pleased to advise that practically every avail- able piece of land that we own around the plant is being used for war gardens for our employes. There seems to be a great interest in home gardening through- out this territory. We have never seen the land so entirely and carefully cultivated. Hardly a family is without a garden. Almost every one of our men has a garden. The books you sent were quickly taken and have been of great service to our people. They are now planning a great canning campaign.
One of the most interesting instances of this eager- ness to help both the country and its employes, was furnished by the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company, of Inspiration, Arizona. Before a thing could be planted, it was necessary to dig five artesian wells to furnish the water needed for the two hundred and seventeen acres of war gardens cultivated by the miners in the first year of the enterprise. The land was situated 3,300 feet up in the mountains. The re- gion was arid. The employes were cosmopolitan. Italians, Chileans, Mexicans, Indians, Finns, Swedes
58 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
and other nationalities were represented in the poly- glot assembly. Few of them spoke much English, and more than seventy per cent, of them spoke no English at all. It was necessary not only to instruct them, but to translate and print bulletins and lesson-sheets in a number of languages.
A garden expert from the Arizona Agricultural Sta- tion was engaged to take charge of the enterprise. The double-crop system was employed so that as soon as one crop was harvested another was started. If any war gardener was found who did not take proper care of the plot assigned to him, the ground was taken from him and given to another. A market was established to which the growers could carry any of their surplus product and have it sold for them without charge for the service. Nothing was permitted to go to waste, and the food which could not be used at once was canned or dried and stored for future use. On account of the climate most of the conservation was by the drying process. The amount of food grown was large and the saving in this instance was particularly great be- cause of the distance of the mining center from great supply markets.
Something as to the methods used by other corpora- tions in promoting the war-garden movement among their workers may here be of interest. From Mr. Luther D. Burlingame, industrial superintendent of the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company, at Prov- idence, Rhode Island, comes an instructive report.
This concern opened the war-garden campaign by
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 59
posting a notice on the shop bulletin-boards, announc- ing a chance to serve country and family by helping to meet the serious shortage in the food supply, and informing the men that the company would furnish land, and plow and fertilize it free for those who would raise crops. Cards for applicants were furnished to the clerks in each department of the shop.
The plots were divided into several groups, in order that the men might secure gardens as near as possible to their places of residence. After the drawing, the numbers of the gardens were filled in on the cards. The required requisitions for fertilizer and seed went through the supply department. The supplies pur- chased were obtained at wholesale prices, the men being charged only enough above cost to pay for the handling and accounting.
To each gardener was given a card which bore his name, address, and the number of his garden plot, to constitute proof that he or any member of his family carrying it had a right to the particular plot desig- nated. These cards were issued for the protection of both gardens and gardeners. Printed on them were the following rules :
1. Members shall keep their plots weeded and as free from bugs and injurious insects as possible.
2. Members shall not throw refuse on neighboring plots, or in paths. After harvesting, lots are to be cleaned, and refuse taken to places provided.
3. Members shall not plant closer than 12 inches from the boundary line. Any one working your lot must show this card.
60 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
A gardening club was organized with elected officers representing as far as possible the different depart- ments of the shop and different plots of land. The general administration of the project was in the hands of the shop industrial department, but the gardening club was consulted and asked to pass on many mat- ters which had to do with the satisfactory carrying-on of the work, thus giving them something to say as to what should be done. Part of the plowing was done with a tractor. The land was divided into individual plots each containing from 2,000 to 2,500 square feet; and stakes were set diagonally at the corners of each plot with the number of each plot showing at each corner. At the largest garden center a tool-shed about sixteen by thirty-six feet in size was erected where run- ning water was available and a man placed in charge so that tools could be given out on check. This shed was open from daylight to shortly before working hours each week-day, again at noontime, and from six o'clock in the afternoon until dark. It was also open on Satur- day afternoons and to some extent on Sundays. A slight charge was made those who desired to hire tools instead of buying their own.
To supervise the gardens and give general instructions to the men who had not previously had gardening ex- perience, a practical farmer with training in an agri- cultural college was employed. As at other plants throughout the country the gardens in many cases be- came family affairs, and all the members of a family took part either in work or in supervision.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 61
"As the season advanced," said Mr. Burlingame, "a spirit of good-fellowship and the forming of new acquaintanceships among those who found themselves cultivating neighboring gardens, were features which added to the value of the garden project. It was some- times found that a laborer working side by side with a foreman could, from the gardener's standpoint, turn the tables, become instructor, and set the pace. When illness prevented some man from working and there were no members of his family to help out, shopmates volunteered and cared for his garden or even harvested his crops for him. Otten gardens cultivated by men hav- ing had experience adjoined those where the workers were beginners. In such cases the best good-will was shown in giving and taking advice and instruction."
Regular inspections of the gardens were made and rec- ords kept. If a garden showed signs of being neglected, a notice was sent to the workman and this tended to spur the food growers on to keep their plots in such excellent condition that there would be no need for criticism. The men took their work very seriously. Some swamp land which had never been cultivated and which was considered absolutely useless for garden purposes was reclaimed and produced excellent re- sults. The largest crop of potatoes in a single garden, twenty bushels, was raised on a lot which the gardener enlarged by digging up land which had been a dump beyond the plowing. A number of prizes which were offered by the company for the best crops both as to size and quality aroused keen and friendly rivalry and
62 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
had much to do with stimulating the progress of the undertaking. An exhibition was held in a shed at the factory at the close of the season.
In the first year of this work, 1917, there was grown in 500 gardens covering thirty acres of land, food valued at $10,000. This added to the food supply of the work- ers 4,000 bushels of potatoes, 254 bushels of beans, 223 bushels of tomatoes, five and a half tons of turnips, more than two tons of carrots, three tons of cabbage, and nearly a ton of parsnips, besides a large quantity of other vegetables.
Similar statistics were gathered by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, of Akron, Ohio, as to the value of the crops produced by the Firestone workers on a tract of forty acres. The average value per acre of these crops was $280. The men raised $14,205 worth of food. The total expenses were $3,024. The net profit was $11,182. It was figured out that the men earned on the average almost a dollar an hour for the time spent in cultivating their plots, the exact figures being ninety-four cents an hour.
Gratifying as these financial rewards were, the work- ers were perhaps even better pleased with the realization that they were aiding in bringing victory nearer. They knew that they were cutting market and grocery bills by raising a part of their own supplies; but they also realized that to win the war, "food must be kept fol- lowing the flag."
No class of people in the country was in a position to realize more fully the immense value of war gardens
^
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 63
in another direction than the manufacturers and their employes. This was in the saving effected in trans- portation facilities. These men knew better than any others the urgent demand which essential war shipping was making on freight-cars. They saw and handled daily the vast quantities of raw materials and finished products which had to be hauled. They knew there was a shortage which could not be made up entirely. They were cognizant also that gardening would result in a considerable conservation of carrier space which could help to fill the demand. If hundreds of thousands of workmen in all parts of the United States were grow- ing much of their own food right near their homes, it required no argument to prove that long lines of cars would be released for other service.
The industrial promotion of the war-garden move- ment was not confined to manufacturers. Railroads, large insurance companies, public utilities in many sections, banks, and those engaged in numerous other lines of industrial -and commercial activity, were equally enthusiastic and active in forwarding the move- ment. Gas companies opened demonstration kitchens and gave out thousands of books and other printed matter. Water companies in many places throughout the West, where the land required irrigation for culti- vation, furnished water free to all those who announced their intention of planting war gardens. Banks which helped so unselfishly and patriotically in other cam- paigns, urged home food production upon their patrons by handing to them leaflets pointing out the national
64 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
need and the pressing importance of this work, and by giving out also instruction books from the Commission telling the city farmer how to proceed.
Praise must be extended to business as a whole for the part it has taken in aiding in the cultivation of war gardens by the nation's army of workers. A list of the concerns which have helped in this way would be prac- tically all inclusive. Among the big nationally known companies which have been especially active in this form of war work are the Oliver Chilled Plow Company, Du Pont de Nemours & Company, the American Roll- ing Mill Company, the American Woolen Company, the General Electric Company, the United States Steel Corporation, the American Optical Company, the American Cast Iron Pipe Company, the American Steel and Wire Company, the J. I. Case Plow Works, the Universal Portland Cement Company, the Oliver Iron Mining Company, the Ford Motor Company, the Solvay Process Company and the Eastman Kodak Company.
Employes at the various mills of the American Wool- en Company planted in 1918 a total of 1,229 acres of gardens; and Mr. William M. Wood, the president of this big manufacturing concern which made large quantities of clothing to help keep the American sol- diers warm, expressed his gratification at this other way in which the employes were working to help their country.
As to some of the benefits to the workmen themselves, the moral strength which they gain from their employ-
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 65
ment in this side occupation of gardening, their release from the narrowing and confining work in which they often are engaged, it is appropriate to quote from an article by Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University, a member of the Commission, in which he says:
A laboring man sees his work sweep by him, a peg in a shoe, a bolt in an automobile, and since he is not able to visualize his part in the product, his work ceases to be interesting and becomes drudgery. He wants to shorten his hours; and the employer, whose work is interesting, whose work is his life, cannot understand why the employe is always trying to shirk, whereas he himself is willing to work twelve or sixteen hours a day. The reason is that in one case the instinct of workman- ship is satisfied and in the other case it is not.
Here we have summarized in a telling way one of the best possible arguments in favor of the upbuilding, the strengthening, and the continuation of war gardening among the employes of mills, factories and shops. The tasks they are performing in most cases do not satisfy their "instinct of workmanship." They do not finish their day's labor and go home with the feeling that they have taken a step forward, that they have accomplished something which will add to their value to themselves, their families, the community and the country.
A man who is a cog in a vast machine cannot put individuality into the driving of continuous pegs into a shoe; but when he gets outside the walls of the factory into the little forty by sixty vegetable plot he is cul-
66 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
tivating under the shadow of the mill, he can put him- self into this work. It is for his own good. What he grows there will be his own property. It will go to support himself and his family. How much or how little of it there will be depends upon himself, upon how intelligently and how faithfully he cares for the plants. He takes an interest in watching every develop- ment from day to day because he is to reap the reward. This work is his own. It means that he will take a deeper interest thereafter in the work he is doing for his employer. It is only natural that a man should feel a more real concern and show greater pride in doing something where he will share in the profit. It is not in any sense disparagement to a workman to say that he cannot display the same sense of gratification in his regular work.
There is greater diversity in the cultivation of a garden than in most other tasks. It offers, in fact its successful prosecution demands, good judgment and the display of sound sense. This is healthful exercise for the mind, which makes it more alert and more able to grasp and figure out other problems arising every day of the workman's life. Combined with this mental activity is the invigorating bodily exercise than which there is none better than digging in the earth and get- ting close to nature.
While the reports to the National War Garden Com- mission show that the methods adopted by various manufacturing concerns which encouraged gardening among their men differed somewhat in detail, as would
THIS IS NOT NEPTUNE!
Joe Borzell, an employe of the Oliver Chilled Plow Company, South Bend, Indiana, was proud to pose for his picture with some of the fine potatoes and cabbages he had raised in his war garden. It is plainly to be seen that some of the company's other workers who had gardens had to show extra fine results to beat this man's products.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 67
of necessity be the case, still the fundamental principles were the same; and the results obtained, chief among them better contentment among the men, were every- where alike. The Commission feels that no other single phase of its work has been of greater and of more lasting benefit than the stimulus it has been able to give to the wonderful growth of factory gardening. Increased food production by this means is of immeas- urable value to the nation, to the community, to the employer of labor, and to the individual. In congested industrial centers it is particularly desirable that every possible relief be given to freight transportation sys- tems; and the raising of large quantities of food "F. O. B. the Factory Door" affords great help in that direction. Business men have seen the advantage of this movement and will continue to encourage and expand gardening among their employes.
CHAPTER VII HOW THE RAILROADS HELPED
WAR GARDEN ACTIVITIES OF MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYES
A soon as America became a belligerent the rail- roads of the country sought to help relieve the food shortage and the traffic situation by encouraging the cultivation of all vacant lands along their rights-of-way. They called on their employes to plant this unused acreage wherever it might be found. To railroad managers the double value to be gained was quickly manifest. The movement would not only add to the nation's food supply but be an important and direct factor in relieving the demands on the carriers for the hauling of freight. The result was that nearly all the railroad lines ran through gardens of growing vegetables which were soon seen flourishing every- where, along the tracks, around the cosy little watch- boxes of the crossing flagmen and even alongside sta- tion platforms.
The railroads furnished the land to their men free of charge or at nominal rental, and in many cases further assisted them by supplying quantities of seed and by aiding in the preparation of the soil. They placed posters in their stations calling attention to this oppor- tunity for patriotic service, and distributed tens of thousands of copies of gardening and canning manuals furnished them by the National War Garden Commis-
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THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 69
sion. The Pennsylvania Railroad alone, on its lines east of Pittsburgh, gave out during the season of 1918 more than 20,000 copies of these instruction booklets. The division superintendents and their assistants acted as the distributing agents. In addition they frequently assisted in other ways in helping to arouse the entire local and community interest in this work. Through the posters, displayed conspicuously on bulletin boards, the attention of hundreds of thousands of other persons besides railroad employes was called to the urgent need of war gardens and of conserving food. Local station agents were also a powerful factor in the work. Not only did they encourage the company employes to engage in gardening but they assisted in other ways to arouse interest.
As a sample of what the railroads did in this direction, here is an extract from a general notice, signed by R. L. O'Donnel, assistant general manager of the Penn- sylvania Railroad, which was posted along all the lines of that road. This was addressed "To all employes of the Pennsylvania Railroad." It said:
Owing to the interest shown, and the substantial results obtained by employes of the Pennsylvania Rail- road in the cultivation of war gardens last year, the Management will renew for the present season the arrangement by which vacant land belonging to the Company may be available to employes for garden pur- poses, at a nominal rental. . . . All employes who are able to do so, are urged to take advantage of these opportunities by cultivating war gardens this spring and summer, thus assisting our country in the production
70 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
of food, and also aiding in a very essential manner to win the war. Employes taking this action will, in addition, be helping themselves in one of the best pos- sible ways. It is for just such purposes as these that the Daylight Saving plan was initiated. Last year the employes of the Pennsylvania Railroad lines east of Pittsburgh raised crops of an estimated value of one quarter of a million dollars. Let us endeavor to surpass this good record in 1918.
Many other railroads deserve special mention for their activity in this line. Among them are the New York Central, the Union Pacific, the Northern Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the Illinois Central, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Long Island, the New York, New Haven & Hartford, the Missouri Pacific, the Erie, the Boston & Albany, the Delaware & Hudson, the Chicago & Northwestern, the Pere Marquette, the Louisville & Nashville, the Norfolk & Western, the Seaboard Air Line, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul and the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis. The New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company reported that a number of gardens were planted along its right of way in 1917 and that in 1918 all available land was applied for and assigned for this purpose.
A report from the Buifalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railway showed that more than 2,100 bushels of seed potatoes were furnished to the prospective gardeners, and that the men not only planted these but bought more for themselves, besides buying seed for other
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THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 71
vegetables. The resultant yield was 28,000 bushels of potatoes and other garden products to a value of $15,400. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy reported among other products 3,000 carloads of beans from lands which hitherto had been considered of little value except for grazing purposes.
Plans for the continuation and extension of this work in 1919 have been put into effect by the United States Railroad Administration on all the lines over which it has supervision; and in urging the call of Victory Gardens it cooperates closely with the National War Garden Commission. In response to an appeal sent out by J. L. Edwards, director of the agricultural section of the Railroad Administration, replies have been received from virtually all the regional directors and other officials stating that they would promote the movement to the fullest extent possible. A notable example was the reply from B. F. Bush, regional director of the south- western region. He said: "I wish to state that the railroads in the southwestern region will again do every- thing they possibly can in permitting their rights-of-way and station grounds to be used for farming and garden- ing purposes. During the last season this work was handled on practically every railroad in this region with much success and it will be repeated." Alexander Jackson, agricultural agent of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, answered as follows: "We feel that the War Garden is a permanent fixture in practically all parts of our territory where gardening is possible." C. L. Hoffman, agricultural agent of the New York, Ontario
72 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
& Western, sent this message: "I assure you that I shall do all in my power to have the cooperation of all the officials of o*ur roads in an endeavor to increase the victory gardens of 1919 over the war gardens of 1918." Similar evidences of activity were received from many others.
New posters were furnished the officials by the Com- mission to help carry to the railroad men and the public all over the United States the call for continuing and increasing home food production. These posters were placed in stations throughout the country, in the great city terminals and in the stations in small towns, under a general order issued by W. G. McAdoo, Director General of Railroads. The posters thus officially dis- played are regarded as one of the most potent factors in reaching the American public with the message of the world's food needs which followed the signing of the armistice.
CHAPTER VIII THE ARMY OF SCHOOL GARDENERS
How THE CHILDREN OF AMERICA WERE MOBILIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT
A a factor in education the war garden and its successor, the victory garden, have established themselves in a way that will prove a permanent influence in American life. Through the schools millions of children have been awakened to the value of garden- ing as a patriotic effort of war time and an undertaking worth while at all times. They have been taught that nature is a generous giver who requires only to be encouraged. They have been impressed with the impor- tance of food production and trained into an army of practical producers. The national benefit from such teaching and training cannot fail to be far-reaching in its effects and a lasting force in the lives of the future men and women of America.
In the development of school gardeners two ideas were given consideration. An immediate increase in food production went hand in hand with the educational value of the work. It was not expected, of course, that all school children would become immediate producers, but it was certain that the great volume of work under- taken in the schools would be of appreciable worth in swelling the total of war time food pro:duction and of even greater importance in creating a vast army of future citizens trained to intelligent application of the
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principles of thrift, industry, service, patriotism and responsibility. The results have been highly gratifying to those concerned with the undertaking.
For the mobilization of the school children the logical agency wa's theUnited States Bureau of Education of the Department of the Interior. P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, approached the under- taking with broad vision and keen foresight character- istic of his administration of educational affairs for the Federal Government. Under his guidance there came into being the United States School Garden Army, mobilized with effective promptness and swung into action under the leadership of J. H. Francis as director. Dr. Francis is an educator of note who was drafted into this important work by Commissioner Claxton, and he brought to bear on the enterprise perception and aggres- siveness which achieved results of national importance in comparatively brief time.
President Wilson was keenly interested in the United States School Garden Army. His cordial endorsement was expressed in a letter to Secretary Lane which served as the corner stone of the structure and an inspiration to the children of America. This letter was as follows:
February 25, 1918. My dear Mr. Secretary:
I sincerely hope that you may be successful through the Bureau of Education in arousing the interest of teachers and children in the schools of the United States in the cultivation of home gardens. Every boy and girl who really sees what the home garden may mean will,
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 75
I am sure, enter into the purpose with high spirits, because I am sure they would all like to feel that they are in fact fighting in France by joining the home garden army. They know that America has undertaken to send meat and wheat and flour and other foods for the support of the soldiers who are doing the fighting for the men and women who are making the munitions, and for the boys and girls of Western Europe, and that we must also feed ourselves while we are carrying on this war. The movement to establish gardens, there- fore, and to have the children work in them is just as real and patriotic an effort as the building of ships or the firing of cannon. I hope that this spring every school will have a regiment in the Volunteer War Garden Army.
Cordially and sincerely yours,
WOODROW WILSON. HON. FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary of the Interior.
From the outset the United States School Garden Army allied itself with the National War Garden Com- mission for the conduct of the work for which it had been organized. This affiliation covered not only food production through gardening but also the work of food conservation through home canning and drying.
One of the first requisites of the newly formed army was that its membership should be reached with tech- nical instructions so compiled as to be authoritative and so presented as to be easily understood. To accomplish this the United States School Garden Army utilized the publications of the National War Garden Commission.
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In response to official request, these were furnished by the Commission in sufficient quantities for circulation among the schools of America. The Commission's book "War Vegetable Gardening" was made the standard book of instructions and it reached every school in the land through the machinery of the United States School Garden Army. In similar way the Commission's book on canning and drying was distributed and given official recognition in the educational world.
The satisfactory results achieved through the cooper- ation of the two organizations was given expression by Director Francis in the following letter to the Com- mission under date of October 5th, 1918:
My dear Mr. Ridsdale:
I do not feel that I should allow the Garden season of 1917-1918 to close without acknowledging to you the very great service the National War Garden Commis- sion has rendered the United States School Garden Army organization, and telling you that we deeply appreciate the cordial, earnest way in which you have cooperated with us in working out our problem.
For 1919 the work of the United States School Garden Army was further expanded and standardized. Per- ceiving the value of school cooperation through the Bureau of Education, the National War Garden Com- mission prepared special printings of the victory editions of these books.
These are for the exclusive use of the United States School Garden Army. On the front cover of the school edition of each book appears a reproduction in the
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THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 77
original colors, of the poster by Maginel Wright Enright, which has become known as the pictorial trade- mark of the Army. This poster presents Uncle Sam as the Pied Piper of the Gardens, at the head of an army of children bearing garden tools as their weapons. As an introduction the books carry an official proclamation to the schools of America, calling on them for further work in the cause of food production and conservation. In his proclamation Director Francis says :
The food problems of peace give renewed emphasis to the demand for food production. With the ending of the conflict came the necessity for feeding many millions more of the people of Europe. Food Adminis- trator Hoover tells us this country must send 20,000,- ooo tons of food overseas during the year ending July i, 1919. To make this possible it is essential that pro- duction be carried on to the utmost of our possibilities. The farms have lost a large proportion of their man- power. Some one must take the places of the men who have left the farms and of the women who have gone into channels of industry in which they were not pre- viously employed.
The boys and girls of America must help to do this. There is a mighty army of them, thirty to fifty million strong, who have heads, hearts, and hands, leisure time and patriotism to spare. There are also hundreds of thousands of acres of tillable land uncultivated. The problem is, therefore, to get these two factors together. It is a problem requiring careful, efficient organization. The organization is here, one of the most powerful in the country — the public school system of America. To build another capable of doing the work in hand would require years and cost millions. School gardens and
78 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
school-supervised home gardens have received serious attention, but only a negligible part of the work has been undertaken. The school system should and must undertake the work with seriousness and determination and give the world results that are real and adequate. Superintendents of schools must make their schools a vital, an actual, force in giving more food to the world and in conserving what is produced. They must do this in addition to talking and writing about this some- what spectacular and highly interesting phase of the school's part in the war. And this is their work, not to be sublet to other agencies who by the very nature of the problem can not solve it but can only contribute to its solution.
Commissioner Claxton and Director Francis are deeply gratified at the success of the garden movement among the school children and greatly impressed with its promise for the future. The interest thus awakened and the practical knowledge thus acquired by the young gardeners, they regard as one of the most important national benefits of the war and one which will be of immeasurable worth in its influence on American citizenship.
CHAPTER IX COMMUNITY GARDENING
PUTTING "SLACKER LANDS" TO WORK
AMERICAN war gardening, like every other de- velopment in life, has gone through a process of evolution. Because the exigencies of the situ- ation necessitated haste, that evolution has been rapid. Contending with the most wonderfully organized force the world has ever seen, it was necessary, since so much depended upon the American war garden, to apply to it the principle of the best organization, and to unify it in order to strengthen it. As a result there speedily came into existence the community garden.
Many are the advantages gained through community gardening. To begin with, community gardening is practically the only method by which all available garden space can be put to work. Genuine community gardening, where all available lands are surveyed and allotted to gardeners, hardly falls short of land con- scription. Community gardening played no small part in helping to win the recent war. To get enough food to win, the Allied peoples had to utilize every pps- sible garden spot. In America back-yard areas were readily worked by patriotic owners. The enormous areas of "slacker lands," idle, vacant town lots, could not be put to work without considerable difficulty.
At the very least, the owner's permission had to be
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secured before a lot could be farmed; and the average man was either too diffident or too lacking in initiative to secure such permission. On the other hand, the average lot-owner did not care to be repeatedly annoyed by requests from various individuals for the use of his idle lands. Both of these difficulties were obviated through real community gardening. The lot-owner dealt with known, responsible representatives of the gardening organization and had to give his consent but once; while the would-be gardener, far from having to seek a plot, was assisted to find one.
Community gardening is also important in that it effects a saving of labor. In preparing the land, for instance, a team of horses or a tractor can plow a large number of gardens in one day. Where the ground is in large plots, a team can readily prepare one acre in a day. One acre will contain slightly more than twenty- one gardens each forty by fifty feet — a good size for a family plot. By plowing the tract with a team, the cost to each of the twenty-one gardeners is small. To dig by hand a plot forty by fifty feet, particularly if manure is to be turned under, requires many hours of hard labor. If the gardener has at his command for gardening no time other than the after-work hours of the evening, it will take him several days merely to get his seed-bed prepared.
Again, when a group of people are together cultiva- ting a large plot of land, they can often purchase their supplies, including fertilizer, implements, and seed, at wholesale rates, and thus effect a considerable financial
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 81
saving. One implement will often serve for two or more gardeners, the gardeners arranging to use it at different times. Employes of factories who have worked to- gether in this way have found the community sys- tem of much benefit. Other groups too have found it equally helpful.
Community gardening also makes it possible for expert supervision to be provided. A group of scat- tered individuals would probably find it difficult to engage the services of a skilled gardener to help them in their planting and cultivating. At slight expense to each person involved, a community group of gardeners can employ some expert to look over their gardens once or twice a week, or as often as is found necessary, and t© guide them in all problems of cultivation.
Some groups of community gardeners may be for- tunate enough to have among them a man trained in gardening, who is willing to give them the benefit of his experience without charge. In other cases it may be necessary to pay the supervisor in some way for his instruction. In any event, whether the community group possesses a trained gardener or not, all the mem- bers will be able to gain a certain amount of benefit from the experiences of their fellows. Each will possess some bit of information which will be helpful to the others.
Another gain to the community workers is the friendly rivalry which is aroused by close contact with fellow food producers. Each acts as a pacemaker to the others. Each strives to make his plot "the best." He begins by aiming to keep his garden freer from weeds
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than his neighbor's. This means that he gives it better and more intensive cultivation and in so doing he is certain to increase his yield.
"Well, John, how many bushels of potatoes do you expect to get off your lot?" is the question which one gardener asks of his side-partner.
"Oh, I think I'll have five bushels," is the reply.
"Well, I'll bet you a good cigar that I beat you by a bushel, " is the friendly banter.
"You're on!" And so it goes.
Each of them turns to and digs a little harder than he did before. Then darkness overtaking them, they walk home together discussing the ways of bugs and the wherefore of wilt and blight.
The value of such good-natured encouragement and cheer is not to be taken lightly. Always this marching forward together, with a brother's hand on the shoulder, has made the work of life easier and has added to the output of the workers.
In community gardening the question of organiza- tion is always an important one to be considered. This is true no matter what the size of the undertaking, whether it includes the working out of plans for an entire city or for a single group of workers in one large plot. In starting a new enterprise of this sort it must be known how much land is available for cultivation, the location and character of the land, the kind and quantity of manures and fertilizers readily procurable, what skilled directors can be secured, and the probable number of gardeners.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 83
When the problem is being worked out, whether for the first time or for a realignment of forces and appor- tionment, an inventory of the town's gardening re- sources should be taken. A survey for this purpose can be made by existing agencies, or a special force or com- mittee can be appointed for the purpose. A complete community survey in a town should include all lands within the district, private yards as well as vacant lots. The Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade, or the Civic Club is naturally the nucleus for such an effort; but the school board or a church or political club can conduct the work just as effectively. The local Council of Defense, the Mayor's War Committee or a similar organization should help. Through these agencies communities in all parts of the United States were intensively organized for the war-garden campaign conducted in 1917 and again in 1918.
When it is known that there is such united effort back of a movement, it gains in strength and prestige and there is greater stimulus to the individual worker. People will enter with more vim and enthusiasm into a task which has the backing and support of all their fellow-townsmen. Public meetings should be held to enlist interest and to secure more general cooperation. At these meetings there should be addresses by some of the leaders in community thought, in addition to discussion of the work by those who are more directly concerned with its operation and guidance.
In making a survey of the available garden space in a city or town, there are certain well-established meth-
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ods of procedure which have been found most helpful. Survey forces should be selected, one for each district in the community. Each should have a leader and assistants. In many successful surveys these forces have consisted of senior classes in high schools, of Sunday school classes, of troops of older Boy Scouts, or of other boys. A certain day was selected for the work and this fact well advertised through the newspapers and by announcement in other ways. Large-scale maps show- ing the different parcels of land simplified the work. Each leader, with his assistants, was made responsible for a certain district. Then cards were prepared for the information as gathered. On these cards questions similar to the following were printed:
1. Name, address, and telephone number of land-
owner.
2. Whether land is a back yard or vacant lot.
3. Location of plot.
4. Approximate area in square feet.
5. Condition of the plot.
6. Whether owner will cultivate it or rent or lend it.
7. On what terms and conditions owner will rent or
lend.
Other inquiries as to the amount of fertilizer avail- able at different points, the quantity of seed likely to be required, also the demand for tools and other sup- plies, usually are made at the same time. With all these cards filled out and arranged alphabetically, the committee is in possession of a complete and compre- hensive survey of all the garden space available in the
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THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 85
community. Meantime, the committee can receive applications from those desiring gardens, and assign convenient plots as soon as arrangements can be made with the owners. Thus it is possible, with compara- tively little difficulty, to provide for the working of every foot of available garden land in the community.
In the gardening itself there should likewise be cooper- ation. In every town may be found retired farmers or experienced truck growers or a county agricultural agent; and arrangements should be made with some such trained worker to give advice and instruction as to selecting the crops best suited to the soil and as to the details of planting and cultivation. Where such indi- vidual is not available, sometimes it is desirable to raise a fund that may be used to hire a g-arden expert to supervise the work. Where possible, the cost of supervision should be borne from a general fund raised by the organization in charge. If this is not practicable, the individual gardeners should pay it in proportion to the size of their plots. The supervision should extend over the entire gardening season.
A group of gardeners should be organized just as any other association is organized, with its executive head and its directing committees. Various problems are bound to come up each season, and these can be handled better through committees than if the indi- viduals themselves or a few of them attempt to solve them. The executive head should have general super- vision of the work and for this reason should be, if possible, some person who is familiar with gardening.
86 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
Committees should arrange for purchasing seed, ferti- lizers, and other necessary supplies for the entire group. This cooperative spirit will save time and money to all concerned and will bring better results. Reduced rates usually can be secured when garden supplies of any sort are bought in considerable quantities.
In dividing a large tract into a number of individual plots, it should be remembered that an average size of forty by sixty feet is about as much as is needed for one family. This should give an ample supply of vegetables not only for summer use but to provide a surplus for canning and drying purposes and for winter storage. After a large piece of land has been divided and allotted, it must be understood that for garden purposes the lot assigned is the property of the person or family to whom it was given, and it should be protected as such. Each plot should be numbered. In assigning plots the fairest way is by drawing numbers.
As a specific instance of organized community gar- dening, the story of garden production in Marshall- town, Iowa, in 1918, is of interest. Marshalltown is a city of approximately 20,000 people. Mayor S. H. Reilly, sensing the crisis in the food situation, called upon the county agricultural agent to determine the amount of space within the city that could be put into gardens. The county agent's survey revealed a fine farm within the city limits, for the aggregate area of the unused vacant lots which could be put to work ex- ceeded seventy-five acres. The county agent found, moreover, 300 tons of stable manure suitable for fer-
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 87
tilizer which was going to waste. This was enough to provide four tons for each acre. The survey com- pleted, arrangements were speedily made with the owners whereby the unused lands could be put to work.
The county agent's survey also revealed things other than land and fertilizer. He discovered that many 1917 gardens had been failures because the gardeners were ignorant of agricultural principles. They had tried to raise vegetables in soil not suited to them, and they did not understand cultural methods. Among the residents of Marshalltown were a number of retired farmers. Like Cincinnatus, called from his plow to become a public servant, these farmers were called from their retirement by the Mayor and drafted for public service. They were made garden supervisors for the city. Each was appointed to oversee the work in several blocks and to make sure that the gardens were properly planted and well cared for. In order that seeds might be assured to rich and poor alike, a public subscription was taken to provide money for their purchase. Thus Marshalltown's gardens, like Mrs. Fuzziwig's smile, were both vast and substantial.
To organized community effort was due a large part of the success of the war-garden movement in the United States. Without such help it is certain that the city farming plan never could have attained the overwhelm- ing success with which it has met. The generous thanks of the nation are due the loyal and self-sacrificing local committees and associations which gave of their time and their energy to carrying through the plans which
88 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
resulted in popularizing home gardening. War-garden associations were created to arouse people to the need of the work, to get them started, and to give them guidance and assistance as they proceeded. The cooperation in this community effort came from many sources. Offi- cials of all sorts, almost without exception, gave the movement their endorsement and support and fre- quently served on the committees while prominent individuals showed equal patriotism in their desire to see vegetables grow where none had grown before.
That the war-garden associations thus formed will be permanent bodies, or continue as committees of the local chambers of commerce, boards of trade, or other bodies, is assured. So excellent has been the work ac- complished in this organized way that community effort to aid home food production must continue. With the knowledge and experience already gained, these local committees should become more and more a factor in helping to solve food problems as they arise. Their pur- pose and their power doubtless will expand; and they will become community centers servingfor the discussion and initiation of other methods of food production.
CHAPTER X
COOPERATION IN GARDENING
UNITY IN THE "SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE"
FORTUNATELY the movement to coordinate gardening activities in America, from the outset, met with sympathetic response. Thanks to the loyal cooperation accorded the National War Garden Commission, there was never any question of the success of the garden campaign. Such question as there may have been was merely as to the extent of that success. At no time was there hesitation on the part of those enlisted in the army of the soil as to carrying out the suggestions made to them. In a spirit of loyal and hearty cooperation organizations of all sorts and indi- viduals of all classes throughout the United States worked with the Commission to overcome every obsta- cle that threatened the success of the food-production campaign.
Merely to tabulate the names of the various clubs, committees, and individuals who helped in this move- ment would require a volume. Such a list would include hundreds of state, county, and local organiza- tions which through their officers, committees, and branches stimulated the interest of their own members and of others in war gardening. It would contain the names of hundreds of chambers of commerce and other
trade bodies; city and county officials; mayors and
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90 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
postmasters; school superintendents and college in- structors; superintendents of park departments and health officers; women's clubs and home demonstra- tion agents; insurance companies and railroads; lumber and mining companies; banks and business houses; commissions for beautifying cities and tenement- house inspection officers; lighthouse-service supervisors and bureaus of municipal research; public libraries and church societies; ministers of the gospel and leaders of boys' clubs and many others who were able in various ways to cooperate in spreading the message and in rendering active assistance in getting the vacant places of our cities and towns to work growing food. This service was given in both the production and the con- servation campaigns of the Commission.
This cooperation took many forms. In some cases it was of an active and constant character, beginning with the start of the drive to get the war gardeners lined up in the army of the soil and continuing until the last tomato was pulled and the final potato dug; or until the last canned or dried vegetable had been placed on the pantry shelf and the final prizes awarded. In other cases it consisted merely of the distribution to interested parties of a supply of the Commission's gardening or canning and drying manuals, with a word to each home food producer wishing him success in his patriotic work and praising him for his undertaking. More than 4,000,000 of the Commission's books on gardening and canning and millions of its bulletins and leaflets were given interested persons in 1918.
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Libraries all over the United States gave most gen- erous support to the work of the Commission. Many made special displays of books on gardening. They placed posters on their bulletin-boards or in other con- spicuous places, calling the attention of readers to the need for food and informing them that gardening books and canning manuals could be had for the asking. "The supply you sent us is exhausted, and the demand continues," was the characteristic word the Commis- sion received from a large number of libraries to which consignments of the books had been shipped.
In some cities and towns the work was carried on merely by the popular sentiment in favor of war gar- dens which was stirred up by appeals in the press and other publications. In many places, however, war garden associations were organized to guide and direct the movement, or voluntary committees undertook to perform this service. The leaders in many cases were familiar with methods of procedure and required little assistance. As a rule, however, they were glad to receive publications giving them detailed informa- tion as to how to plan and carry on their work. Again they were pleased to receive instruction books on gar- dening which they could distribute among the numer- ous applicants, and this was true even in cities and towns where it was possible to secure the services of paid agricultural experts to take charge of the technical end of the campaign.
Nowhere did the Commission receive more loyal support and he!arty cooperation than from the public
92 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
press. Closely in touch with conditions the world over, newspaper editors understood, as perhaps many others could not understand, the gravity of the food situation. In their endeavor to do their share, they gave gener- ously of their news space. Particularly was it neces- sary to get the appeal for home food gardens before the dwellers in towns, especially in the larger centers of population, for there food was most needed, and there people were least likely to take upon themselves the duty of cultivating the small plots of land at their disposal. Practically all such Americans were reached by the Commission through the newspapers. In fact, practically all Americans were reached. News stories were prepared by the Commission's publicity bureau, setting forth the facts as to the world food situation, and these articles were placed in the hands, not of a few editors, but of hundreds a:nd hundreds. Not only were most of these news stories freely printed, but often they were also prominently featured in such way as to emphasize the message they contained.
After the need of gardening had thus been sufficiently impressed upon the mind of the public, the Commission's staff of experts prepared daily lessons in gardening, which were sent to a great number of newspapers. Hundreds of leading newspapers, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, carried these daily lessons. The Phila- delphia North American, to mention only one of many large city newspapers, printed a garden lesson daily for many weeks, publishing it on its front page and displaying it in a special box to attract attention.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 93
These lessons began with the preparation of the soil and the sowing of seed in the house for early vegetables, and dealt with one or more vegetables daily, setting forth in simple language the proper cultural methods for the vegetables in question, and pointing out the diseases and enemies of the particular products under discussion, together with methods of combating them. Though simple in language and shorn of all useless technicalities, these daily gardening lessons lacked no essential cultural directions; and even a beginner could have become a successful gardener by following care- fully the directions given.
The publicity campaign did not end with telling gardeners how to raise vegetables. As soon as the garSen season was well started, appeals were made through the newspapers for the conservation of all excess garden products. The necessity for such conser- vation was first pointed out, and then methods of canning and drying garden products and fruit were set forth simply and completely. These publicity cam- paigns in the public press went hand in hand with the issuance of the Commission's various books, which were offered free to any one upon request.
Despite the wonderful response of the public to appeals to raise garden products, it was apparent that the need for food increased rather than decreased, because production so constantly fell off in Europe. The constant dripping of water will wear away even the hardest stone, and the Commission believed that the endless repetition of the garden appeal would
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finally move even the most indifferent reader. For this reason its publicity campaign did not end with the gardening season. News stories and garden statis- tics of all sorts were gathered by the Commission and given to the press. These stories included accounts of the work of individual gardeners, of garden clubs, of communities, and of the organized gardeners in great industries. Likewise the Commission gathered to- gether thousands of cartoons and funny stories and jokes about war gardens and war gardeners, and issued books of these humorous items. The press reproduced this matter the country over and in this way the funny- bone of America was tickled with the garden idea. The Commission's publicity work was not confined to the daily press. Feature stories were supplied to many magazines and periodicals as well as to the magazine sections of Sunday newspapers. These articles were more pretentious than those prepared for the dailies. They aimed not merely to be authoritative but to have literary quality as well. They dealt with gardening from many different points of view, but always the lesson was conveyed that more food was needed and that it would have to be raised by the average American, irrespective of his vocation. With these magazine articles, and with many of its newspaper stories as well, the Commission supplied illustrations. Its agents had secured hundreds and hundreds of interesting photo- graphs showing different phases, of garden work in al- most every portion of the country. These pictures, portraying war gardens from the arid sands of the
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 95
Southwest to the cold mountain slopes of the North- east and from the rocky coasts of the north Atlantic to the sandy beaches of the Pacific, brought home to every one who saw them the idea that everywhere, in all sorts of places, people of all kinds were toiling to produce food. The moral, "Go and do likewise," was too obvious to be missed.
Whatever would attract attention to the need of gardening, or help the gardener with his work, or assist in putting to work the large areas of "slacker lands," the Commission tried to portray by word or picture in the pages of the daily press, the weekly magazines, and the periodicals of less frequent publica- tion. It stood ready to furnish, and did furnish, garden- ing and conservation matter of any sort to any one who requested it. Service was the motto of the Commission, and that service was well repaid in the splendid response of the American people to the appeal for gardens.
CHAPTER XI WAR GARDENS AS CITY ASSETS
A THING OF BEAUTY Is A JOY FOREVER
EVERY city aims to be as prosperous and progres- sive as possible and nowadays most people realize that the city beautiful is also likely to be the city commercially worth while. Probably no other one enterprise will add more to a city's beauty than gardening. Gardening, therefore, has double value. It both enriches and beautifies. By the same token it develops civic pride and community spirit.
For these reasons any community shpuld delight in being called a "garden city," whether the name is applied literally or merely in a figurative sense. One result of the war-garden movement is that practically any American community can truthfully be designated by this term.
It is fortunate indeed that this is true. Unity of thought, of action, of ideals, is the crying need of the hour in America. United, we stand; divided, we fall. Probably nothing is more potent as a factor for build- ing up community spirit than gardening, particularly community gardening. A link to bind men together is gardening. It creates common interests. It unites all hands in the common end of producing food. Rubbing elbows in their garden patches, lawyers and laborers, tradesmen and housewives, speedily discover that they 96
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 97
have much in common. One of the things they have in common is their interest in their community; for each wishes to see it progress.
If the democracy of a nation depends upon the democ- racy of the individuals who compose that nation, then assuredly the war garden is a forge that is daily strength- ening the links in our chain of democracy. Our soldiers, shoulder to shoulder in the trenches, learned, that, whatever their respective stations in life, they are brothers. In a heat a little less intense, but none the less sufficient to weld the strongest souls, our garden- ers, too, have fused into a solid unit. Link by link the chain of our democracy has grown stronger.
With it has grown our civic pride — the pride of each community in the progress it is making. One of the progressive things cities are proud of to-day is the extent of their war-garden activities. Just as different communities aimed to be the first "over the top" in a Liberty Loan campaign, and to secure the flag which spoke of patriotic duty performed, so they have been anxious to excel in the number of war gardens they have planted and in the amount of food they have raised to help the boys "over there."
The National War Garden Commission has received from hundreds of cities and towns throughout the United States expressions showing how proud they are of their war-garden records. Typical items of this enthusiasm are these: "Every bit of available land is being cultivated;" "There is scarcely a home here without a war garden;" "All back yards and vacant 7
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lots are being planted;" "We believe we have the best war gardens in the United States." Each city wanted to make a record in food production. It is through rivalry of this sort that cities progress.
War gardening, again, is an asset to any city in that it adds to that city's material wealth. All food grown adds just so much to a city's wealth. In the first place gardening gives the individual more money. By plant- ing a home garden he reduces his own expenses, saving many dollars on his market and grocery bills. Whether he saves and invests this money in some local enter- prise, or spends it for necessities or even luxuries, the community benefits. The money goes into houses and lots, into automobiles, books, furniture, pianos, cloth- ing, into everything, in fact, that modern man needs for his comfort and happiness. Thus while he is help- ing himself, he is also helping the merchants and the tradesmen of the city. He is adding to his own and the community's resources.
The financial gain to a city from the war-gardening enterprise is strikingly revealed by figures on the amount of produce raised. A few cases will be illus- trative. For instance, Indianapolis estimated the value of its war-garden crop in 1918 at $1,473,165, an in- crease of more than $600,000 over the previous year. Denver placed its yield at $2,500,000 and Los Ange- les at $1,000,000. The figures for a few other cities were as follows: Minneapolis, $1,750,000; Washing- ton, District of Columbia, $1,396,500; Grand Rapids, Michigan, $900,000; Salt Lake City, Utah, $750,000;
MIDST TOWERING SKYSCRAPERS
In Bryant Park, New York, in the heart of the nation's throbbing metropolis, there was planted
a demonstration war garden, and a little garden house was erected which served as a
distributing center for literature of the National War Garden Commission. Formal
ceremonies were held at the time of the dedication of the building.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 99
Louisville, Kentucky, $750,000; Worcester, Massa- chusetts, $750,000; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, $500,- ooo; Dallas, Texas, $300,000; Scranton, Pennsylvania, $450,000; Rochester, New York, $350,000; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, $250,000; Burlington, Iowa, $250,000; Newark, New Jersey, $160,000; New Orleans, Louisiana, $125,000; Atlanta, Georgia, $100,000.
Another gain which comes to a city from war gar- dening is the improvement in the appearance of the place; and added beauty means added worth. The poet who sang that "a thing of beauty is a joy for- ever" might have written with equal truthfulness — although, of course, we do not expect the minds of poets to run in such practical and commercial channels — that it is also a " thing of value forever. " In the long run those improvements which add to the beauty of a city or community add also to its material prosperity and to its civic progress.
For this reason chambers of commerce and other trade organizations do good service for their communities when they urge the cleaning-up of all vacant lots and open spaces and their conversion into gardens. Travel- ers have noted how much better many towns looked during the past year or two because of the fact that most of the back yards "fronting" on the railroad tracks have been improved into clean, well-kept vegetable plots. The average back yard is bare of flowers, as these are reserved for the place of honor in front of the house; and so a vegetable garden in the space at the rear is highly to be commended as an attraction
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to the place. A person renting or buying a piece of property which displays a healthy and prosperous- looking garden is immediately put into a more favor- able frame of mind by the sight of this growing food and is willing to pay more for the place.
As to the vacant lots which straggled and scrambled along many city streets before the days of war gardens, nothing more than a mere statement of fact is neces- sary to convince any one that the removal of these "sore spots" is advantageous in many ways. These barren lands, with their unsightly briars and weeds, their ugly ash-heaps and piles of litter, detracted not only frdm the appearance but from the commercial value of all the surrounding property.
In hundreds of cases it was not realized until an ac- tual enumeration was made, how many acres of such unused land there were in a city. There was scarcely a town of any size which did not contain a total of hundreds of acres of such idle, useless land. With little effort these unsightly lots can be converted into rich gardens to help feed the city and the nation. To clean up all such places, therefore, and to put them to profitable use, is a standing advertisement for the city. Furthermore, the example of one city leads to a dupli- cation of the good work elsewhere and an effort to improve on it. Thus the gain of one is the gain of all. The city benefits, the state benefits, the nation benefits.
Cleveland surpassed itself in war gardening. As a result of the very active campaign conducted there under the auspices of the war garden committee, a
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 101
sub-committee of the mayor's advisory war committee, 40,000 war gardens were planted in 1918. The city had set out to make it 25,000 but went far beyond this figure. George A. Schneider, chairman of the commit- tee, mapped out a broad and comprehensive campaign which resulted in a splendid record. Carl F. Knirk, garden director, was untiring in his efforts to make the work a complete success. A survey was made of every vacant lot in the city and its suburbs, with high- school boys aiding in this collection of data in their respective districts. Six paid instructors were engaged and each placed in charge of a certain district. Three tractor plows prepared the ground in the larger tracts. Other agencies cooperated in the movement. These included women's clubs, schools, business houses, and manufacturing concerns. Western Reserve Univer- sity introduced a course in home gardening and it was opened to some of the garden clubs and women inter- ested in the work. Many of the industrial plants provided land for their employes and hundreds of fine gardens were the result. The companies also encour- aged their men in the conservation of their garden products. Thousands of the Commission's war vege- table gardening and canning and drying books were distributed to the city's home food growers through the Cleveland Public Library and the Cleveland Public Schools and through the Cleveland Trust Company, the Citizens Savings and Trust Company, the Superior Savings and Trust Company, the Guardian Savings and Trust Company, and other public-spirited institutions.
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Even a beautiful city park system loses none of its charm when a part of it is turned to utilitarian purposes. Historic Boston Common was none the less attractive to the passer-by during the season of 1918 because a fine demonstration war garden was growing at one side of it. Even when the necessities of war do not make it such an important and desirable prospect, a trim and well-cultivated series of vegetable plots such as displayed their patriotic beauty there, would not detract from the natural beauty of the landscape.
Potomac Park, in the shadow of the tall and stately Washington Monument, was a constant source of pleasure to the thousands of automobilists who sped along the river driveway. In the afternoon and twi- light the sight of hundreds of war gardeners cultivat- ing their vegetable patches in sight of the White House and the majestic dome of the Capitol was a picture never to be forgotten. Down at the lower end of the Chesapeake Bay near where busy transports were loading their precious human freight and their supplies for France, the Commission on Beautifying the City of Norfolk took charge of the war-garden campaign and conducted it to a successful conclusion, adding more than $200,000 worth of vegetables to the food wealth of that rich truck-growing section of the country.
In New York City an extremely interesting war garden was growing in Bryant Park. There in the heart of the great metropolis, shaded by over-towering sky-scrapers and beside the majestic public library, a small war garden spoke its message to the world. This demonstration plot was under the direction of
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A. N. Gitterman, chairman of the war garden com- mittee of the Department of Parks for the Borough of Manhattan. The little garden-house which stood there was dedicated in the spring of 1918, and from this center were distributed large quantities of the National War Garden Commission's books and other literature to help the "city farmers" of Greater New York. The work of this garden, like that of the millions of other war gardens throughout the country, was helping to keep the light burning on the Statue of Liberty at the entrance of thi's great harbor of a free country.
In his report at the end of the season to William F. Grell, Park Commissioner of the Borough of Manhat- tan, Mr. Gitterman said:
We maintained two demonstration gardens, one at Union Square, Fourteenth Street and Broadway, and the other at Bryant Park, Forty-Second Street and Sixth Avenue, where headquarters are maintained in a model garden-house which was donated to the city by the National War Garden Commission of Washington. This garden has been a great success from its dedication when President Pack turned the first spade of earth in this most valuable garden-plot in the world.
Intensive gardening was here profitably demonstrated as is shown by the results achieved in the limited area allotted to each variety. Small blackboards explained each operation in the little garden when the supervisor was working, planting, weeding, cultivating, thinning, spraying, or picking. In addition, information in detail was given on the special bulletin-board concerning in- sects and their control, weeds and their relation to agri- culture, spraying formulae, seed varieties, plant diseases, and other garden data of interest to the war gardener.
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In the Borough of Manhattan there was an increase, according to the report, of seventy per cent, in the war- gardening activities of 1918 as compared with the year preceding. In 1919 it is expected that every available vacant lot will be planted.
More than one hundred and sixty loads of manure were furnished during the season of 1918 and delivered to the gardens from the various riding academies near Central Park.
The demonstration garden in Union Square had soil but a foot in depth over the subway roof and this served to impress upon the minds of pessimistic owners of vacant land the value of cultivation even under a handicap, as the results obtained from this one foot of soil were considerable.
A constant stream of visitors recorded their names and addresses in the guest-book at the little garden- house in Bryant Park. People from almost every city in the United States and a great number from European countries inspected the place.
Cities, as well as individuals, can entertain angels unaware, and many a community that encouraged war gardening purely as a patriotic measure, has found that city farming is a paying as well as a patriotic activity. Bread cast upon the waters, in the form of gardening efforts to help a famishing world, has re- turned after many days as a rich reward in increased civic wealth and betterment. Decidedly, war gardens are an asset to any city.
CHAPTER XII THE PART PLAYED BY DAYLIGHT SAVING
How " CITY FARMERS " WERE ENABLED TO TAKE TIME BY THE FORELOCK
BECAUSE of the Daylight Saving Law war gar- dens added far more to the nation's food supply in the season of 1918 than would have been pos- sible otherwise. This law was in operation during seven months of the year, from the last Sunday in March until the last Sunday in October. The impetus which this gave to the movement and the material gain re- sulting therefrom were almost inestimable. That the measure increased by many millions of dollars the value of the food grown is undoubted.
An idea of what this extra hour of daylight meant to the war gardeners of the country may be gathered from the actual amount of working time it presented as a free gift to the home food producers. This extra hour given each afternoon to the war gardener meant a total of 182 hours during seven months of twenty- six working days each. Multiplying this figure by the number of war gardeners in the United States — 5,285,000 — it gives the stupendous aggregate of 961,870,000 hours of time, or 329,407 years of eight- hour days.
More than 300,000 years were thus added to this one industry alone by a single piece of legislation, laws
similar to which had been adopted by fifteen other
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countries before the United States followed their ex- ample in the spring of 1918.
To secure the passage of the Daylight Saving Law the National War Garden Commission used its in- fluence, and many of the leaders in the war-garden movement throughout the country urged upon Con- gress the vital need and the value of this statute. The congressional committee which had the measure in charge showed its realization of the effect the law would have on gardening by mentioning it most prominently in its report. This document said in part:
In view of the increased food production which will be brought about under the bill, the comfort and the convenience which it will bring to laborers and the public generally, and the saving of expenses, especially relating to light and fuel, it is believed by our committee that the measure should be enacted.
That the measure accomplished all that was expected of it, and was of inestimable value in helping the United States in its gigantic war preparations, is the testimony of the nation. In a statement on the subject at the conclusion of the first year's operation of the law, Sen- ator Calder of New York, author of the bill, called particular attention to its benefit to war gardeners. He said:
The Daylight Saving Law which became effective on the last Sunday in March has more than fulfilled the prophecies of its advocates. It has really turned one hour of night into day. People live by custom. They rise in the morning by the clock; they eat their meals
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 107
by the clock, and go to bed by the clock, so that during the time this law has been in operation a vast majority of the people of this country have been awake one hour more of daylight and asleep one hour more of dark than they were formerly. This additional hour of daylight has been most helpful to the men, women, and children of the nation who have taken advantage of it to plant war gardens, thereby not only relieving the strain upon the farm but to a very considerable degree tending toward economy in family expenditures. It has also saved in gas and electric bills not less than ten per cent, of the money formerly spent for this purpose. In addition, it has saved during its seven months of operation this year at least one million tons of coal. It has afforded in the construction of cantonments for our army, in the manufacture of munitions and war supplies of every character, and in the building of ships one hour more of daylight for the men engaged in these industries.
It is a universal practice for working men and women to begin their day's labor at eight o'clock and in some industries at seven o'clock in the morning. They can- not be induced to work before seven o'clock, but, with the long evening produced by this law, those who labor have been induced to work additional hours at night where the exigencies of the occasion demanded it. With- out question this bill has been most helpful in the great war work in which this nation was engaged.
The Daylight Saving Law will be in effect again in 1919 and each succeeding year unless it is revoked by further legislation, for the bill as passed provided that "at two o'clock antemeridian of the last Sunday in March of each year the standard time of each zone
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shall be advanced one hour, and at two o'clock ante- meridian of the last Sunday in October in each year the standard time of the zone shall, by the retarding of one hour, be returned to the mean astronomical time of the degree of longitude governing said zone." Its benefits, therefore, will continue, and as the number of home food producers increases the resulting gain will be greater.
CHAPTER XIII THE FUTURE OF WAR GARDENING
THE FRUITS OF PEACE TO SPRING FROM THE SEEDS OF VICTORY
COMING events, we are told, cast their shadows before. Among the prophetic shadows now hov- ering over us is a finger of cloud which points to vital changes in the business of feeding the world. In- deed, these changes are already taking place. In part they have taken place, but many of us, being of those who have eyes yet do not see, are still unaware that the old order has changed and that the new order of things has come to pass.
No other single occupation born of the war has affected a greater number of people than has gardening. Starting from a mere nothing before the United States entered the war, this form of service grew in less than two years into a new occupation, which numbered its followers by the millions and, in the number of people employed, exceeded any other branch of gainful occu- pation with the single exception of actual farming.
The fact that such a vast number of American citi- zens took up this work shows that they appreciated the merit of it, and this is one of the reasons for the confident prediction that war gardening has come to stay. It is something that the world will not willingly let die. Home food production will continue because
it has been found worth while; and, like other things
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which this war has demonstrated to be of value and benefit to mankind, it will last.
War gardening will permanently establish itself be- cause its peace-time value will fully equal its war-time worth. This will be true at all times, but more partic- ularly during the first five or ten years of the great reconstruction period. During that period the matter of food production will be of the most pressing im- portance. It will be on a par with many of the other enormous reconstruction problems which face the world. It will require the continued application of broad thought and effort. There will be no decrease in the demand for foo,d; in fact that demand will really be greater, much greater, than it was during the days of actual conflict.
This will be true because the coming of peace means the restoration of the freedom of the seas, and freedom of the seas means a restored commerce. German sav- agery and the frightfulness of unrestrained subma- rine warfare have largely driven the world's ordinary commerce from the seas; and much of that commerce was traffic in foodstuffs. For decades, even centuries, Europe has been dependent upon the remainder of the world for food to eke out its own inadequate supplies. Before the war, for example, England, according to the United States Food Administration, produced but one-fifth of her own foodstuffs, while France raised one- half of hers, and Italy produced perhaps two-thirds of what she consumed. What was true of these nations was true of the remainder of Europe. Unless food could
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS in
be obtained from foreign sources, hunger was sure to visit practically every European nation. The shutting off of commerce by German piracy has meant star- vation, literal starvation, to multitudes of innocent persons.
The restoration of commerce means that all these starving nations will send their ships to America for food, food, and still more food. The number of these innocent neutral victims of German savagery is put by the United States Food Administration at 180,000,- ooo persons ! Russia, too, is disorganized and starving, and her population numbers 160,000,000!
If figures never lie, the burden we must carry in time of peace, as indicated by statistics, is truly appal- ling. When the war began we were feeding our own 100,000,000 people and sending abroad a relatively small and constantly decreasing surplus. To our 100,- 000,000 we had to add the 120,000,000 people of the Entente allied nations. Speedily we found that our claim that America was "the granary of the world" was an empty boast. Merely to provide food sufficient to enable our allies to eke out their own stores taxed us to the utmost. Only through decreased consump- tion, by having recourse to wheatless and meatless days, by lessening our use of butter, milk, sugar, and other exportable foods could we send enough to keep our allies from actual starvation.
During the three years preceding the war, our ex- ports of meat were just short of an average of 500,- 000,000 pounds a year. In 1917 we shipped abroad
H2 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
2,000,000,000 pounds — an increase of 400 per cent. In the same way our exports of butter in 1913 totaled slightly more than 3,500,000 pounds. In 1917 we ex- ported, in round numbers, 26,750,000 pounds. Before the war our shipments of cheese averaged 2,500,000 pounds. In 1917 they exceeded 66,000,000 pounds. Our exportation of condensed milk jumped from 16,500,000 pounds to 259,000,000 pounds.
If the feeding of our 120,000,000 allies made such a drain on our resources, what will happen now that 180,000,000 starving neutrals also come to us for food; when Russia's helpless 160,000,000 thrust their hands across the sea to us, even as the sinking Peter appealed to Christ, saying, "Save me or I perish"? Now that peace has come; now that Germany and Austria are again to be admitted to the society of nations, as even- tually they must be, how can we prevent their hungry multitudes — another 100,000,000 souls — from also en- tering our markets and bidding for our food supplies? Already our former foes are begging piteously for food, and President Wilson has assured them that their appeals will be heeded.
$$Now that these things have come to pass, we must feed or help to feed, not 220,000,000 people as during the war, but an additional 440,000,000. In short, now that the war is ended and commerce restored, we must help to]ffeed|two-thirds of a billion of people !
Food Administrator Hoover recognized this condition as inevitable, and when the armistice was signed he was prepared to reckon with it. With the cessation of hos-
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tilities he marshalled the food forces of America and proceeded at once to Europe to join hands with the food forces of England and the Continent to the end that starvation might be prevented. As one of his initial steps, before sailing, he asked that the war gar- dens of America be maintained and expanded. To the Victory Gardeners, he gave the impetus of his urgent plea for continued effort in the cause of food production.
The signing of the armistice caused complete and peremptory re vision of the figures dealing with America's obligations toward meeting the world's demand for food. During the war we had to furnish food for France and Belgium, but they were a France and Belgium greatly reduced in area because of German invasion. Much of their territory and millions of their people were held by the enemy, shut off from their own countries and therefore compelled to depend in part on the in- vaders for subsistence. To-day these people are repat- riated. Their restoration to citizenship has brought the obligation to feed them.
While the direct burden falls on France and Belgium, these countries must look to America for ways and means. By all the ties of international friendship, by a sense of gratitude for the part these countries played in winning the war, by geographical location and by inherent capacity to provide food, America is the one country able to meet the call. We must also provide for the smaller allied nations which have been under German oppression — Serbia, Rumania, Greece, the
8
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Czechs, the Jugoslavs, the starving population of North- ern Russia and the people of other countries in Europe.
The revision of figures necessitated by the armistice gave new meaning to America's responsibility. The original pledge madeby theUnited States was 17,500,000 tons of food to be shipped overseas during the year. This amount of food was 50 per cent, greater than that which was sent the year before. With Belgium and France liberated and millions in south central Europe clamoring for food, the United States undertook to increase its exports from 17,500,000 to 20,000,000 tons.
To meet the demands for food America has two sources of supply. Food can be raised only en the farms, by those who make a business of production, and on the lands of our cities, towns and villages. No other sources exist. The 40,000,000 acres of farm land under cultivation have already probably reached their maxi- mum of possible production for the immediate present. It is obvious, therefore, that if we are to give the world more food the new supply which will make this possible must come from the only remaining source — the small gardens in our urban and suburban communities.
The changed conditions brought into being by the signing of the armistice caused the National War Gar- den Commission to continue its work with increased earnestness in 1919. The armistice caused hostilities to be suspended but it did not increase the food supply nor feed the hungry. The world's new demand for food made it imperative that the Victory Gardens meet and surpass the record of the war gardens. To do its share
Sow the seeds f Victory*
plant raise your own Vegetable
RECEIVED CERTIFICATE NUMBER ONE
Mrs. Frank P. Brown, of Cincinnati, captured first honors with her war-garden display of
canned vegetables at several exhibits where she was an entrant. She was awarded the first National
Capitol Prize Certificate offered by the National War Garden Commission in 1918, to blue-ribbon
winners in this class at fairs and exhibits all over the country.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 115
toward bringing this about, to meet the urgent appeal of Mr. Hoover and to help feed a starving continent, the Commission realized that no relaxation was to be considered and its campaign for 1919 was on a broader and more vigorous scale than during the conflict.
This terrific demand for food will be not a matter of one season only. For years and years we must con- tinue to supply unheard-of amounts of food. Indeed it would have been almost as easy to put Humpty Dumpty together again as it will be to restore Europe's agriculture. The soil of thousands of acres has liter- ally been blown away by high explosives. Practically all the lands in the embattled nations have decreased in producing power through poor handling, neglect, and lack of fertilizers during the war. And of the host of farmers that toiled to feed Europe before the war, millions now lie beneath the soil they tilled, and other millions, maimed and crippled, can never again turn a furrow or harness a horse. As long ago as 1916 the shortage of cattle, hogs, and sheep in Europe totaled 115,000,000 head; and without livestock to produce manures years must elapse before Europe's produc- tion is restored to normal.
Since American farmers cannot produce all the food needed, American gardeners must continue and extend their merciful work of helping to supply the food needs of the world. Instead of lessening their efforts, they will be called upon to add as much as possible to their pro- ductive capacity because of the additional mouths to be fed. They are offered a new opportunity to help.
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There is no question that the cultivators of our war gardens, now become victory gardens, will continue their labors.
For a decade or two before the war, there was deep study and much discussion of the problem as to how to check the exodus from the farm to the city; but argu- ment and discussion availed nothing, and the exodus continued. In the "city farmer" has been found a partial answer to the stay-on-the-farm idea. Ambi- tious young men and women will not remain in the country where comforts are denied and where advan- tages of education and social life are few; but they will be glad to farm in the city. The victory garden has opened the way. By this means almost every one becomes a food producer.
Furthermore, increasing prices will make it desir- able to the individual, and the growing demand for food will make it desirable from the country's point of view, that every one help to feed himself. The read- justment which must come out of the war calls for powers as Herculean as those it has been necessary to put forth during the terrible struggle against "Kul- tur." This reconstruction work calls for every bit of man-power that can be found. It is a question not of months but of years before this up-building is com- pleted. In France, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Russia, and other European countries, the rebuilding of cities and churches, railroads and bridges, docks and roads, houses and barns, the remaking of trench-scarred and shell- torn farms, and many other big works, must be per-
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 117
formed. So we can look for no huge immigration after the war to solve our labor problem, and that problem is acute. There are no ruined cities to be rebuilt, or devastated farms to be restored in the United States, but there are innumerable construction tasks to be done that have been put aside during the war.
Thousands of miles of road — to mention a single task — will have to be completely rebuilt. The day of the heavy motor-truck as a means of transportation between city and city has come to stay, and for its accommodation there must be a strengthening of roads. This is one of the great tasks awaiting the army of men returning from the battle-fields. The construction of new buildings in our cities, checked by war-time need of material and men, must be resumed and lost time must be made up. Cities will need many improve- ments which will keep the workers of the world busy. In these and a hundred other ways there will be steady call for the men released from strictly war work.
All these facts point to the increasing value of the victory garden. It will be just as important a factor m the life of the nation and the community after the war as was the war garden during the conflict. The need for gardens will last for many years; and during that time, the value of gardening will have become so apparent that the movement will continue indefinitely. It will have become a habit fixed and firmly implanted in the hearts and lives of the people of the country.
In addition to all this, gardening has been found to be a health measure. It has been used in the rehabili-
ii8 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
tation of convalescent soldiers. Around the hospitals in Europe, almost since the beginning of the war, vege- table plots have furnished the means for providing easy and pleasant outdoor work for convalescents, which acted as a tonic to their shattered nerves and bodies. Similarly, at the hospitals and army camps in the United States this form of activity was employed to help in the rebuilding of disabled and convalescing soldiers.
In the great reconstruction work at the Walter Reed hospital, which lies in the outskirts of the nation's capital, a fifteen-acre war garden proved of much thera- peutic value in the treatment of men suffering from various diseases. In addition to helping them regain their health and strength, gardening trained these men for the future and equipped them to make their own living and become valuable citizens of any community when they should leave active service. Part of the large war garden at Camp Dix, New Jersey, adjoined the base hospital; and potatoes and other vegetables were grow- ing during the season of 1918 up to the very porches on which some of the invalids had to sit in their wheel-chairs.
Sailors as well as soldiers need fresh vegetables to eat, but they cannot grow vegetables at sea. To over- come this handicap a movement was started through- out the United Kingdom to give naval men a supply of fresh vegetables whenever they got to port. Navy vegetable rations formerly consisted of potatoes only, and a few dried or canned products which could be kept a long time and stored in small space. The new
"
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 119
British organization soon had eight hundred branches and collecting depots throughout the United Kingdom. Headquarters were established in London, with Admi- ral Lord Beresford as president. The patrons included many prominent people, but its members ranged from the owners of large estates, contributing regular sup- plies weekly, to the small schoolboy with only a ten- foot plot to cultivate. Not long after the work got under way, 300,000 pounds of fresh vegetables and fruits were being furnished weekly to the British navy. In speaking of this work and its value, Rear Admiral Lionel Halsey, third lord of the Admiralty, said:
Those associated with the Vegetable Products Com- mittee can happily feel that this work is of priceless value, for without a vegetable food the men of the fleet could not have so thoroughly performed their work in the past; nor will they be able to do so in the future without a continuance of this splendid work as effici- ently and as generously as in the past. Its value may be realized when it is stated that these supplies are an invaluable factor in keeping the men in good health and fitness.
What is true in the case of the stalwart men of the British navy, is true of all other members of society, of high and low degree. There is need for vegetable food. The body is kept in better condition if it does not de- pend too largely on a meat diet. Victory gardening will add greatly to the proportion of greens which will enter into the diet of the American people.
The future of gardening, therefore, is assured. It is
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such an important economic gain, and its benefits in other ways are so numerous, that the army of home food producers themselves will be its strongest and most ardent champions. Both by practice and by precept they will continue to spread the gospel of "Food F. O. B. the Kitchen Door." Just as the army which has fought for justice, decency, and civilization will see to it that these principles are maintained in every part of the world, so the soldiers of the soil in city, town, and vil- lage, millions of whom have tested the worth of garden- ing, will be its future champions and defenders. It is in these ways that the seeds of victory will insure the fruits of peace.
CHAPTER XIV CONSERVING THE GARDEN SURPLUS
How HOUSEWIVES TURNED THEIR RESERVES INTO PRESERVES
FROM the governments of the Entente Allies and the associated nations, whose territory girdled the earth, came the cry for conservation. There was need for this cry. Never in the world's history was material of all kinds used up in such quantities. More than once, in a three-hour preparation for a short ad- vance, a greater number of shells had to be employed than were fired in the entire Franco-Prussian War. Shells are but a type. Everything was used in unheard- of quantities. This was particularly true of food, the basic material upon which the entire structure of vic- tory rested. Speedily it became apparent that every- thing possible must be saved — old cartridge cases, old shoes, old shells, old clothes, old materials of every sort — and particularly food. This was especially true of food because material like old shoes or old shells could be used repeatedly; but food once eaten was gone forever. As the world's food supply became more inadequate the cry for conservation grew more and more insistent.
"Turn your reserves into preserves!" became the order of the day among the women all over the country. With this as their slogan they made ready by the mil- lion to build up a second line of defense which would
121
122 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS
serve as an effective bulwark against the enemy. The call to make "Every Garden a Munition Plant" was supplemented by the women with the motto: "Every Kitchen a Canning Factory." Every facility that could be found was utilized to carry on this effort. Women's clubs everywhere urged upon their members and others the importance of this work. Community kitchens were opened for the convenience and assistance of those who did not have the means or the time, at home, to preserve all the vegetables grown in their gardens.
It was necessary that a certain amount of informa- tion concerning new and scientific methods of canning be furnished with the appeals made to women to pro- ceed with the work, so the National War Garden Com- mission furnished precise and practical instructions. This it did in a number of ways. A comprehensive but concise canning and drying book was prepared by scientific experts and printed by the Commission for free distribution. Several million copies of this manual were given out during the first season of the garden campaign; and an equal number of the improved and revised editions which were issued in 1918 and 1919. These went to hundreds of thousands of individuals who applied for them, to libraries, local canning clubs and committees, chambers of commerce, and other trade bodies, banks, and manufacturing concerns, schools, hundreds of emergency home demonstration agents of the United States Department of Agricul- ture, and to state, county, and city food administrators.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 123
A series of canning lessons was prepared by the Com- mission's experts. These were supplied to the news- papers of the country, hundreds of which ran them as daily instructions. With many of them illustrations were used, showing the various steps in the cold-pack method of canning, and giving other educational hints in pictorial form so as to attract the eye of the home food conserver and make the work plainer. News stories telling what was being done along this line in various sections of the country were published in the daily pres,s; and large numbers of feature articles were written and widely circulated.
To arouse further interest in the work and to encour- age the best possible efforts, recognition was accorded by the National War Garden Commission for excellence of product. This was in addition to local prizes and awards and was in the form of National Capitol Prize Certificates which were given to the blue-ribbon or first-prize winners at exhibits and fairs for the best displays of canned vegetables from war gardens. With these certificates the Commission gave money awards, the first year in cash, and the second year in thrift stamps.
Many large manufacturing concerns which had ex- tended aid to their employes in planting gardens held fairs at which the products raised were displayed and prizes awarded in the various classes. At a number of these the Commission's certificate constituted the grand prize which went to the sweepstakes-wi'nner in the canned-vegetable class. Not only did hundreds of
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industrial plants, large and small, provide land for their men, prepare it for cultivation and divide it into small individual plots, but they also made arrange- ments for the wives of their workers to can their sur- plus products in kitchens set apart for the purpose and with capable instructors placed in charge to show the women how to obtain the best results.
The appeal to the women of the United States to "Back Up the Cannon with the Canner" met with loyal response. Testimony has been given by promi- nent officials, governmental, military, and civil that the war could not have been won without the aid of the women. They took places left vacant by men in mu- nition factories, on the farms, and in a hundred other activities. It will never be possible to estimate accu- rately the extent to which they made victory a cer- tainty. But to no class of women is there due a greater meed of praise than to the silent millions all over the country who helpqd to save food. While their sisters were working in munition factories, these women in countless numbers were packing away "ammunition" in jars so that the boys in France might always have a supply. Soon after he landed in France, General Pershing sent a message to America. It said: "Keep the Food Coming. " The women of the country obeyed the order. With ladles and spoons instead of bayonets, with wash-boilers in place of tanks, and with cans and jars as their weapons instead of hand-grenades and bombs, they performed valiant service.
They made a fine start in 1917 when, from the
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 125
surplus products of the millions of war gardens, they preserved something like 500,000,000 quart jars of vegetables and fruits. In the following season they far surpassed their previous record and, according to estimates, stowed away approximately 1,450,000,000 quart jars of garden produce.
CHAPTER XV COMMUNITY CONSERVATION
How AMERICAN CITIES BACKED UP THE CANNON WITH THE CANNER
ENORMOUS as was the quantity of food packed away in cans by American housewives in the summer of 1918, the quantity so conserved represented only a fraction of the surplus of American war gardens. Home canning could not begin to take care of the excess, and therefore, in order that the Scriptural injunction be followed and "nothing be lost," it was necessary to establish conservation on a com- munity basis, just as it had been found helpful to stimulate production through community gardening. These organized forms of conservation took the shape of community markets for the distribution, and com- munity canneries for the preservation, of the garden surplus.
Though the Commission limited its efforts along these lines to the furnishing of instructions for conserv- ing food, the work of the community centers for the sale of garden surplus proved most helpful and is worthy of mention. The usual custom was for the community club or other organization conducting the market to charge ten per cent, for selling the products. Many war gardeners found the community markets an excel- lent medium for disposing of surplus vegetables not
needed for home consumption. Purchasers, too, were 126
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 127
glad of the opportunity afforded by the community market to secure vegetables that were fresh and choice. One of the most prosperous and successful of these community markets was at Oakland, California, under the direction of Mrs. James Hamilton, the city direc- tor of food production, who showed courage and energy in pushing her project to success. It will be well to let her tell something of her own story. Here is part of what she has to say:
So far this market has been the means of saving hun- dreds of tons of vegetables and fruits, together with quantities of berries, eggs, chickens, pigeons, rabbits and honey. The greater part, if not all, of the perish- ables otherwise would have been wasted. This market has taken care of the war-garden supplies of our city since it was opened, together with the supplies of several of our big growers of both fruits and vegetables. It will be a very great means of stimulating production for next year because the grower knows he will be given a place where he can market his supplies advantageously.
In Brookline, Massachusetts, a community market was established in an unused church, placed at the dis- posal of the market committee by the trustees. Here, on two days of each week, surplus garden products could be brought for sale. As gardening had been stim- ulated to the maximum there was much to be sold. Those who wished to sell their own products were pro- vided, at nominal rental, with individual tables. Sales were made by the market committee for those not wishing to sell in person. For this service a small per-
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centage of the selling-price was charged. To this mar- ket were brought products from the school-gardens, the surplus from back-yard gardens, and the excess from community garden-patches on great estates, where ground had been lent by the owners for the use of per- sons who had no garden space. Vast as was the amount of produce that poured into the market from all these sources, every particle of it was sold; and ordinarily the market was sold out long before the established hour of closing. Thus, at practically no expense, and merely by utilizing facilities at hand, the people of Brookline saved an enormous quantity of food that otherwise would almost surely have gone to waste.
The women of Roselle, New Jersey, wished to es- tablish a community market, but lacked what would ordinarily be considered adequate facilities, until they secured the use of a vacant lot in the town, and then induced the town council to keep the lot clean. Here, on given days of each week, were brought all the sur- plus products of home gardens and even the excess of neighboring farms which were sold to those who had no gardens or who wished to buy products that they could not raise in their own yards. Thus the excess of the entire neighborhood was brought together and utilized.
At first glance Roselle, like many another small town, had no place which seemed fitted for a community cannery. It had a schoolhouse, however, and that schoolhouse had a kitchen. Presto! It became a com- munity cannery. At the community market the con- servation committee bought from day to day such
We Can
National War Garden Commission
WASHINGTON, B.C.
SERVICE FLAG OF THE HOME CANNER
Window hangers like this went broadcast throughout the United States and Canada. Displayed in front windows they carried to all passers-by the message of canning activities within the homes. The eager demand for these hangers showed the pride of the home canners in their work.
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vegetables as it was desired to can, and the transpor- tation committee conveyed these products, in motor- cars lent for the purpose, to the schoolhouse cannery, where the women of the town did the canning. Thus Roselle did with its might what its hands found to do — and did it with what was available.
In similar spirit of determination the women of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, secured the use of a church kitchen for the summer of 1917 and there began the conservation of community surplus. Under the lead- ership of Mrs. John G. Reading and Mrs. H. C. McCormick, and with the assistance of Mrs. R. F. Allen and many other able women, this task so humbly begun grew in size and importance until the canning system embraced the entire county. In 1918 adequate quar- ters were secured in the business district. Here can- ning outfits were installed, and the women of the city came day after day to put up the surplus from the market and the excess products brought in by farmers. A substantial fund had been voted by the local Com- mittee of Safety to finance this work. Thus the women were able to buy whatever products were brought in. In seven other districts in the county similar work was going on. All the canning centers were run on identical lines and all were affiliated with the central cannery at Williamsport. In this way scores of women throughout the entire county were drawn into the work. Beyond any question this conservation movement had much to do with the remarkable community spirit exhibited throughout the county.
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Another interesting example of a community can- nery was to be found in Salt Lake City. Recognizing the need for food conservation, the city's women first brought about the creation of a community market and later established a community canning kitchen that was run in connection with that market. The work was carried on under the chairmanship of Mrs. C. H. McMahon.
The cannery itself consisted of one of the large market stalls, temporarily enclosed for the purpose and equip- ped with a complete canning outfit. Mrs. W. F. Adams, president of the city's federated women's clubs, was executive head of the organization. She was on duty daily, arriving at the cannery by 7:30 o'clock in the morning. Each morning the market-master purchased in the market such products as Mrs. Adams desired. Sometimes he secured these products direct from the neighboring farms. Occasionally fruit or vegetables were offered to the cannery free on condition that they be picked and taken away. In such cases troops of Boy Scouts were utilized to do the harvesting and motor-cars, offered for the purpose, were used to bring the food to the cannery. In order that there might be a constant force of women at work, that the labor should not become irksome to any, and that the interest be as widespread as possible, Mrs. Adams appointed six lieutenants to look after the labor supply. Each lieu- tenant was responsible for supplying a given number of hands on one day of each week and each lieutenant procured a certain number of women to pledge them-
tflU '
ACHIEVEMENT CLUB GIRLS
Post-Dispatch Photo.
These three young St. Louis girls are members of one of the Achievement Clubs'which took an
active part in many cities in teaching and spreading the doctrine of proper food
preparation and conservation. Canning of surplus vegetables and fruits
was one of their most important accomplishments.
-
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 131
selves to work for her at the cannery on a given day each week. In this way the supply of labor was assured. Usually there was additional help, for all volunteers were welcomed.
In order that the work might be done scientifically, and the pack be uniform from day to day, everything was done under the direction of a paid expert. Visitors were free to come and watch operations, which were thus a continuous demonstration of scientific canning, and thousands of women who had come to market only to buy products also dropped into the cannery and learned the up-to-date methods. The educational value of this effort was beyond computation. The women of the entire city were reached.
One of the most interesting conservation efforts reported to the National War Garden Commission was that of the employes in the shop of the Carolina & Northwestern Railway Company at Hickory, North Carolina. So great was their enthusiasm that they took the cylinder from an old engine and turned it into a canning plant. They coupled up this cylinder with the shop steam-boiler, put on a steam-gauge and drain-cock, and inside the cylinder placed three shelves of heavy wire to hold the jars of vegetables and fruits. Their community canning plant was then ready for operation.
Reports to the Commission from all parts of the country indicated that in a great number of places arrangements were made to preserve surplus garden products through community canneries, and also
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showed the success that attended this effort. Typical of the spirit that animated many of these reports is a statement in a communication from J. D. Parnell, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, Vernon, Texas. Mr. Parnell wrote:
We have a community canner and are preserving everything that we grow. We are also going outside of our county into the communities where they are not equipped topreserve perishable stuff and buyingsurplus. We can it and sell it to those who have no gardens.
Home demonstration agents of the United States Department of Agriculture, women's clubs, represen- tatives of manufacturing concerns, gas and electric companies, and numerous individuals cooperated in this community canning. "The Federation of Women's Clubs and myself cooperating will supervise the mar- keting and the canning of the surplus products of the gardens, " was the report to the Commission from Miss Anna Allen, emergency home demonstration agent at Independence, Kansas. Similar work was performed in hundreds of places.
The success of these community canneries is indi- cated by many reports such as one from Dallas, Texas, which boasted of 20,000 war gardens in 1918, with 17,500 cans of vegetables preserved after the plant had been in operation only a few weeks. This same Texas report told of community canneries at Austin, Beaumont, Marshall, and Corsicana. The last named was in the Odd Fellows Hall and was operated by the children. During the first week of its existence the community
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cannery at Temple, where there were 5,000 war gardens, took care of one ton of black-eyed peas. The cannery at Beaumont had a capacity of 500 cans daily.
Thus, in hundreds of community canneries the country over, thousands of women were saving the excess food upon which the fate of democracy rested, and practicing, as they canned, democracy itself.
M
CHAPTER XVI CONSERVATION BY DRYING
How AMERICAN HOUSEWIVES MADE IT HOT FOR THE KAISER
ARIE ANTOINETTE'S milliner once remarked that there is nothing new except what is forgotten. One of the "new" methods of food conservation practiced by the women of America during the war was that of drying food. To most of them the process was an absolute novelty, yet it is as old as civilization itself. It is merely one of those practices so long out of use as to be forgotten.
Most of us are familiar with dried apples and the evaporated fruits of California, but there our knowl- edge ends. To most of us it comes as a distinct surprise, almost as a shock, to learn that practically all vegetables and fruits can be preserved for future use by drying. Certainly it was a great surprise to most of the housewives of America when they were asked to conserve food, not only by canning, with even which process many were only slightly acquainted, but also by drying, a method practically unheard of.
Drying is both economical and simple as a method of preserving food. It requires no elaborate or costly apparatus. The finished product can be kept in any sort of containers that are clean; whereas in canning expensive glass receptacles must be purchased. Dried foods are compact, thus saving space in storing and 134
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shipping. The original quality and flavor of the dried product is largely retained; and when dried foods are restored by proper soaking, they can hardly be dis- tinguished from fresh vegetables and fruits.
Specifically, dried food products are products free from moisture. The words "dried" and "drying" are applied in general to foods preserved in a compara- tively water-free state, without regard to the method of drying employed. Technically, the term "dried" as applied to food products means products that are dried by exposure to the heat of the sun; "evaporating" is drying by artificial heat; "dehydrating" is drying by artificial air blast, the process often including the appli- cation of artificial heat as well.
The duration of the drying process varies with the method chosen, the size and degree of compactness of the material to be dried, the variety of the product, the range of temperature, and the humidity of the at- mosphere. Two hours is sufficient time to dry some products by evaporation or dehydration. Other prod- ucts may require from one to several days for sun- drying.
Practically all fruits and vegetables, it was early found, can be dried successfully so far as the "keeping" quality is concerned. It was discovered, however, that many dried vegetables were unpalatable when even- tually cooked and served. Enzymic action in the raw products, as well as bacterial action, caused chemical changes which not only affected the flavor of dried food but to some extent also affected its wholesomeness.
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The problem thus arose as to how this disadvantage could be overcome.
Cooking was tried. Complete cooking, parboiling, and even partial cooking were employed with various vegetables, until it was found that a certain minimum period of boiling water treatment was favorable to both the wholesomeness and the flavor of dried products.
This treatment, which varies in time for different products, has been accepted as an essential part of the proper drying of vegetables. It is called "blancfiThg." By it the protoplasm is killed and enzymic action stop- ped. There is a thorough cleansing and a destruction of many bacteria. Furthermore the flow of coloring matter is started, and the color of the product thus accentuated. The fibers are loosened and softened and a condition created which facilitates the giving-off of moisture in the drying process.
In "cooking" food, heat is usually applied long enough to alter the nature of certain materials, such as starch, rendering them digestible. Blanching should not be confused with cooking as it differs both in pur- pose and effect. It is a preparatory process by which the wholesomeness and flavor of a sound product are retained through the temporary stoppage of chemical changes due to agencies present and to bacterial ac- tion when raw flesh is exposed to the air. The drying process should follow at once, and be done as rapidly as possible, with due attention to the proper tempera- tures, which range from 1 15° to 175° F. according to the products handled.
THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 137
If products are not dried sufficiently, the moisture