PUT THE SUN TO WORK 



BY CHARLES LATHROP PACK 



PRESIDENT, NATIONAL WAR GARDEN COMMISSION 



OLD SOL is doing war work! The sun has been 

 drafted! Yes, he's helping Hoover and the war 

 gardeners now ! His is no eight-hour day. He has 

 to toil from the time he rises until he sets on food 

 production. 



The secret is out now. Have you ever wondered why 

 the war gardeners, among others, were so anxious for 

 the "daylight saving ?" Well the answer is : they are 



making the 



sun work 

 overtime for 

 them drying 

 food. Yes, 

 DRYING it. 



To be sure 

 it is called 

 "dehydration" 

 now, but don't 

 let that word 

 scare you. It's 

 the same old 

 secret known 

 to our grand- 

 mothers, great 

 grandmothers 

 and far more 

 distant fore- 

 bea reresses, 

 and much- 

 practised by 

 our predeces- 

 sors, the In- 

 dians. Why, 

 even the 

 Egy p t i ans 

 knew all about 

 it, as the 

 stores of "de- 

 hydrated" 

 vegetables and 

 fruits found 

 in their tem- 

 ples will tes- 

 tify. Our old 

 friend, Jo- 



AMERICA'S "PLACE IN THE SUN" 



This is the way the war gardeners of the United States are harnessing the rays 

 of Old Sol to make him help beat the Boche. Dried vegetables prepared for the 

 British army in South Africa during the B oer War were opened recently and found 

 to be as good as ever. They are only one- third as bulky and weigh only one-sixth 

 as much as fresh products, and hence effect an enormous saving in transportation. 



seph, the first food administrator of whom we have any 

 record, got his job through his big idea of having Pharaoh 

 corner all the corn in the year of a big yield and "dehy- 

 drating" enough of it to keep the nation going through 

 several years of scarcity. The rest of us can do as well 

 as he did, for the only intelligent co-operation he could 

 get was that of Old Sol who is working just as well now 

 as he did then. 



m 



That there will be plenty of vegetables to dry this year 

 is shown by reports to the National War Garden Com- 

 mission on the number of war gardens in the United 

 States. Much of the vast amount of garden surplus will 

 be canned ; but large quantities will also be dried. The 

 saving of sugar and of jars, the ease and cheapness with 

 which the work is done, and the compactness of the re- 

 sultant product, are among the factors which make this 



method of 



c o n s e r ving 

 food appeal to 

 the people. 



Est imates 

 based on early 

 returns to the 

 National War 

 Garden Com- 

 mission show 

 that there are 

 more than 

 4,900,000 war 

 gardens in the 

 United States 

 this year. In 

 nearly every 

 section of the 

 country there 

 has been ap- 

 preciable and 

 e n c ouraging 

 increases, the 

 greatest per- 

 centage of in- 

 crease being 

 noted in the 

 central west- 

 ern and Pa- 

 cific coast 

 states, which 

 r e p o r ted a 

 total of 2,276,- 

 000 war gard- 

 ens. The east- 

 ern states in- 

 cluding New 

 New Jersey and 



England, New York, Pennsylvania, 



Delaware showed 848,000 war gardens, while the South, 



counting in Texas and Oklahoma, has 1,246,000. 



Taking these early figures together with the increased 

 canning demonstration work being done by the United 

 States Department of Agriculture in cities and towns, 

 we feel safe in saying that the 1 ,500,000,000 quarts in tin 

 and glass of canned stuff forecast by the Department will 



