Garden Instinct Revealed by War 79 



at Washington, taking correspondence lessons at the 

 hands of the best experts money could employ, or 

 patriotic fervor command. These lessons included the 

 art of preserving vegetables for winter use. 



The result was an extraordinary and almost imme- 

 diate stiffening of the battle-front. There was an 

 enormous gain in efficiency. War gardening became 

 a science in many instances. If the war had lasted 

 ten years longer, the nation would have learned the 

 greatest single fact in the world — that a man can 

 make a living from a very little land. And, when that 

 fact is finally learned, in the length and breadth of 

 America there will be neither a homeless man nor a 

 hungry child. 



Was it Woodrow Wilson who intimated that if we 

 could have the same spirit in peace that we have in 

 war the world would speedily become a paradise? 



The war-garden episode, great as it was in its im- 

 mediate results, was only an example of crude emer- 

 gency work. Its value for the present purpose is to 

 show that the country-minded millions in big cities can 

 garden, and will garden, if they have a chance; and 

 that these facts have a very intimate relation to cost 

 of living. To accomplish the best results, however, 

 they must have a better chance than they found in 

 vacant city plots. The city of the future should be 

 so organized that the work may be conducted on a 

 permanent basis and under the best conditions. Further- 

 more, it must be founded on the principle of home- 

 ownership, of landed proprietorship. While a man 

 will work with fierce energy on anybody's ground to help 

 his country under the stress of war, it is his own 



