882 AXNUAI. REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



more planning to organize in the autumn. Like the farm bureau, the 

 liome bureau is based upon a progTam of work developed b}^ the 

 people of the community, with each project or activity of the pro- 

 gram in charge of a community project leader. The home bureaus 

 of Buffalo and Syracuse, N. Y., have paid memberships numbering 

 930 and 830, respectively. 



Besides their emergency service as leaders in food preservation 

 and conservation, urban agents made records along the lines of child 

 feeding, clothing, and thrift work, cooperated in putting on far- 

 reaching milk campaigns, and started canning kitchens, soup kitch- 

 ens, milk stations, information centers, hot school lunches, and neigli- 

 borhood centers that have been taken over by municipal authorities 

 or welfare organizations. The most effective work seems to have 

 been done with wives of wage earners, women of foreign extraction, 

 and women employed in industry. 



FOOD PKODUCTIOX, COXSERVATIOX, AND UTILIZATION. 



For the year ended November 30, 1918, the State leaders reported 

 570 training classes for local leaders in food production and 12,9G0 

 in food preservation; 750,000 persons reached by lectures, demon- 

 strations, and home visits; over 1,400 exhibits held; more than 



100.000 home gardens planted ; more than 100,000 pounds of cottage 

 cheese made in homes; and a marked increase in the efficiency of 

 home poultry flocks, through poultry culling. Food was preserved 

 by those whom agents influenced as follows: 12,532,205 quarts of 

 fruit, 2,672,757 quarts of fruit i^roducts, 8,982,461 quarts of vege- 

 tables, 269,717 pounds of meat, and 46,380 pounds of fish canned; 



344.001 pounds of fruit and 804,565 pounds of vegetables dried; 

 2,200,000 quarts of vegetables brined; and 462,307 dozens of eggs 

 preserved. Community food enterprises were established with the 

 advice and assistance of home demonstration agents as follows: 445 

 canning kitchens, 33 drying establishments, and 93 demonstration 

 kitchens used as instruction centers; 46 cooperative buying associa- 

 tions; 31 cooperative selling associations; 14 curb markets, with sales 

 amounting to $67,533 ; and 10 milk stations. 



Home demonstration agents gave 27,000 lectures and demonstra- 

 tions on food selection and the use of war substitutes, and made 

 37,663 home visits in this connection, reaching over 2,250,000 per- 

 sons. In addition, thev prepared 3,000 exhibits, attended bv over 

 2,700,000 people.^ 



After the armistice, the agents responded to the widespread de- 

 mand for instruction in food selection, placing special emphasis 

 on child feeding and hot school lunches. 



]SfILK CAMPAIGNS. 



Urban home demonstration agents in Michigan, Massachusetts, 

 Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New ^ Jersey, and rural agents in 

 loAva, Kansas, and Utah took part in vigorous milk campaigns 

 carried on cooperatively with the Dairy Division of the Bureau 

 of Animal Industry, the object being through educational Avork to 

 stimulate the production and consumption of milk and milk prod- 

 ucts for human food. This project was timely in view of the records 

 showing progressive malnutrition of children in the United States 

 during the last few years. Eecords kept by schools showed the ef- 



