FOOD, PURE FOOD, AND FRESH FOOD 39 



chicken fat, however, have enabled us to get along 

 without purchasing any fats except olive oil. 



The vegetable garden should be large enough to 

 supply the family with fresh vegetables during the 

 growing season and with enough for canning and de- 

 hydrating for the winter. In our garden we go in 

 heavily for staples such as peas, beans, radishes, car- 

 rots, lettuce, cabbages, turnips, asparagus, rhubarb, 

 potatoes, and sweet corn, but we have always selected 

 the more toothsome varieties of even these old stand- 

 bys. The varieties developed for commercial purposes 

 are notable usually for size and color rather than 

 flavor. Sweet corn is an instance of this. For many 

 years we have raised nothing but yellow bantam corn, 

 which we believe far superior in quality to the large, 

 white ears which we used to get in the city markets. 

 Incidentally, sweet corn fresh from the garden, be- 

 fore the sugar in the corn has had a chance to turn 

 into starch, is a very different foodstuff from sweet 

 corn after it has been shipped to the city and more or 

 less dried out in the process. Even a dull palate has no 

 difficulty in noticing the difference. 



Such a garden is a much larger undertaking than 

 the usual suburban backyard project. Unless one is 

 content to devote oneself to back-breaking drudgery, 

 the garden cannot be taken care of with a spade for 

 "plowing" and an old-fashioned hoe for "cultiva- 

 tion." We turned to the wheel hoe, one of the sim- 

 plest of agricultural implements, for help in reducing 

 the labor to manageable proportions. This relatively 



