PUT THE SUN TO WORK 



467 



dried vegetables, but it is unscientific and unpatriotic to shut our 

 eyes to their possibilities. As a people we should move ahead 

 into the field of dehydrated vegetables, develop it, discard what 

 is not good, hold what is good, and make it a means to stabilize 

 those vegetables the price of which fluctuates now in a most 

 unsatisfactory and dangerous way. 



"While I believe that we should consider first our own attitude 

 toward dried vegetables and work out the best methods of using 

 them for ourselves, we are warranted in believing, as conditions 

 are at present in Europe, that there will be need of large quanti- 

 ties of all kinds of foods, including these dried vegetables, in 

 those countries which are now famine stricken. Although it is 

 undoubtedly true that the German troops are using enormous 

 quantities of dried vegetables, it is not demonstrated to what 

 extent they will be employed in the feeding of our own boys. No 

 civilian will take the attitude that the boys should be fed on food 

 which he himself refuses to eat. If we learn to use them exten- 

 sively, it is a practical certainty that our own armies will employ 

 them extensively, as have the armies of Great Britain, France 

 and Germany." 



Drying 

 eliminates 

 some of these 

 items and also 

 the expense of 

 the glass can. 



Much en- 

 thusiasm was 

 shown at the 

 s t a t e-w i d e 

 conference to 

 promote com- 

 munity drying 

 and canning, 

 called in Hor- 

 ticultural Hall, 

 Boston, by the 

 Massachusetts 

 Board of Food 

 Administra- 

 tion* 



"Give me 

 one ship to 

 load with veg- 

 etable foods 

 and I will 

 land the same 

 amount for 

 our boys 'over there' that it takes ten or thirteen ships to 

 carry at present," says Miss Clara Endicott Sears, founder 

 of the Harvard Canning and Evaporating Club. 



The Club, organized only last year, was managed by 

 Mrs. Frederick G. Avery. It produced for the con- 

 sumption of the soldiers at Camp Devens, quantities of 

 peas, corn, blackberries, blueberries, damsons, sweet pota- 

 toes, carrots, beets, apples, peaches, all in the form best 

 suited to prevent perishing. The girls of Ayer volun- 

 teered for the work and soon developed great enthusiasm. 

 The club hopes to treble its work of last year. 



The value of dried vegetables and their keeping quali- 

 ties are shown by the fact that a lot of this food kept 

 from the time of the Boer War was opened recently 

 and found to be as palatable and as nutritious as the 



AND SQUASH IN WINTER 



His Highness the Squash may not be much on looks when dried but he makes up for it in taste, 

 are shown the difference in size before and after the drying process. 



day it was put up. This had been shipped from Canada 

 to South Africa for the British forces there, but on ac- 

 count of the termination of the war a large supply which . 

 was on hand was retained in England. 



John Hays Hammond, the famous international en- 

 gineer and a member of the National War Garden Com- 

 mission, who knows much of South Africa in Boer War 

 days from his work there in the development of that 

 territory, is authority for the statement that the British 

 soldiers could not tell it from the food they were accus- 

 tomed to, and they thrived on it. 



"It was probably due to its success at that time," said 

 Mr. Hammond in speaking of the subject, "that the Bri- 

 tish War Office and the French Governments have pur- 

 chased large quantities of dried food in Canada during 

 the present war for the soldiers in France. Our own 



quartermas- 

 ter's depart- 

 ment, I am in- 

 formed, has 

 purchased 

 several thou- 

 sand tons of 

 dried vegeta- 

 bles and plans 

 have been ap- 

 proved for the 

 possible pur- 

 chase of up 

 to 20,000,000 

 pounds of such 

 supplies. My 

 friend, Dr. 

 Charles L. 

 L i n d 1 ey, of 

 Lakewood, N. 

 J., an army 

 surgeon during 

 Lord Roberts' 

 campaign, 

 with whom 

 I recently 

 talked, con- 

 firmed every 

 claim that can 

 be made for dried food as a valuable portion of the 

 army's ration. 



"When we consider the great saving in handling which 

 can be effected, also the cargo space, the smaller number 

 of trucks required for hauling the quartermaster's food 

 supplies and economies in other ways, it will be readily 

 seen that this is an eminently worth while project from 

 a military point of view, and many of the same or 

 similar reasons make the preservation and use of dried 

 foods by our civilian populations of equal value from an 

 economic and patriotic standpoint." 



Listen to what Lou D. Sweet, president of the Potato 

 Association of America, popularly known as the "Potato 

 King," whom Mr. Hoover made head of the dehydration 

 section of the United States Food Administration, has to 



