URBAN AND SUBURBAN FOOD PRODUCTION-ITS PAST AND 



ITS FUTURE 



BY CHARLES LATHROP PACK 



President of the National Emergency Food Garden Commission and President of the American Forestry Association. 



THIS is the time for stock taking in connection with 

 the food situation. We have had a growing season 

 which broke all records and was generally beyonil 

 expectations. The work of gardening, of canning and 

 of drying vegetables and fruits has been under way' in 

 the land, from Maine to California, and from the Lakes 

 to the Gulf, and has justified all belief as to success. It 

 is important to consider what this means. It means one 

 million one hundred and fifty thousand acres of city and 

 town land under cultivation the past season for the first 

 time. Urban and suburban America became a vast gar- 

 den as the result of the impulse given to the nation by 

 the National Emergency Food Garden Commission. 

 This area of productiveness embraced back yards, vacant 

 lots and hitherto untilled tracts of land in and around 

 nearly every city, town and village. Our nation-wide 

 survey located nearly three million such gardens. This 

 is only a beginning. What shall the harvest be next 

 year? What have we learned this year? 



Germany reports that its town war gardens produced 

 more in 1917 than any year since the war started. This 

 shows the value of experience. In our one year of ex- 

 perience, it is conservative to state, that by the planting 

 of gardens the nation's food supply has been increased 

 to the extent of more than $350,000,000. Next year we 

 will do even better. We will then have more war gardens 

 and the average production will be larger. With a bet- 

 ter knowledge there will be fewer failures. 



Any inventory of the food situation must reckon this 

 great garden fruitfulness as a vital factor. As its first 

 duty, already accomplished, it has been of great value in 

 keeping down the cost of living for the people of 

 America. Household expenses have been bad enough as 

 it is. That they would have been far worse without this 

 garden crop is obvious. There is much evidence that our 

 food gardens are helping our people to feed themselves 

 more reasonably. The editor of the North American Re- 

 view, in the issue for September, 1917, says: "Last spring 

 at garden planting time we urged the increase of produc- 

 tion, partly through intensified culture, to increase the 

 yield per acre, and partly through tke increase of acre- 

 age by the cultivation of neglected fields and even small 

 plots in suburban and urban areas. How well this policy 

 was executed is seen in the report of the National Emer- 

 gency Food Garden Commission that the gardens of the 

 country were this year more than trebled in area. Beyond 

 question, this garden achievement has much to dp with 

 the fact that the increase in price of garden products ir 

 the year was only 22 i)er cent, or less than one-fifth the 

 increase in the price of breadstufFs." 



The war gardens of America have been extensively re 

 ferred to as a valuable economic agency by the news- 



papers of England, France, Italy and South America 

 The significance of this planting does not end with the 

 summer season. The war gardens will exert their in- 

 fluence on the cost of living during the winter months. 

 Their value is a thing of the future as well as the past. 

 Conservation has been practiced on a national scale. In 

 the homes of America there has been earnest recognition 

 of the importance of looking ahead. The individual citi 

 zen has realized that the over-supply of the growing sea- 

 son must be translated into terms of abundance for the 

 winter. This realization has brought about such activity 

 in household conservation as America has never before 

 known. Food saving and food conserving are becoming 

 national characteristics. From a wasteful nation America 

 is being transformed into a nation alert to the needs of 

 the future. The keynote of this new national spirit has 

 been that nothing should be allowed to go to waste 

 that nothing useful should be thrown away. 



The result will mean much for food F. O. B. the pantry 

 shelves in the homes of America this winter and help us, 

 by feeding ourselves, to feed our boys of the Army and 

 Navy and to feed our Allies. Our soldiers must all be fed 

 and the soldiers and civilians of France and England 

 must be fed, and to a large extent fed by us, and we are 

 going to see that this is done. The gardens of next year 

 will exceed those of the past season. In the canning and 

 drying of vegetables and fruit our women have been con- 

 tributing their share. The canning and drying move 

 ment has brought back to thousands of American house- 

 holds an art almost forgotten since our grandmothers' 

 day. This will be continued next year on an even larger 

 scale. 



War has made Uncle Sam the biggest buyer of food in 

 this country. The board bill for his soldiers will soon be 

 at least $1,000,000 a day. We are to have 2,300,000 or 

 more men under arms shortly according to Secretary 

 Baker. At forty cents a day food cost per man it will 

 be seen what that means. True, these men ate before be- 

 coming soldiers to make the world safe for Democracy. 

 Each of them doubtless ate more than forty cents' worth 

 daily. But you must remember that these men have sud- 

 denly become non-producers, and they must be fed by 

 the rest of us. The army is making great plans for 

 camouflage to deceive the eyes of the enemy, but you 

 cannot deceive a soldier's stomach. He must have real 

 food. 



I am told that the reserve stock of foodstuffs at eacli 

 camp is worth $125,000, and there are 33 camps in the 

 country today. This means that food valued at $4,125,- 

 000 is taken out of the regular channels of trade pro- 

 duction and consumption. These figures give but a small 

 idea of the need of food conservation on the part of the 



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