GARDENING AFTER THE WAR 59 



suddenly cease. The necessity for continued food production close 

 at home is as great as ever, and the householder and his wife who 

 have learned for the first time what fresh ^'egetables in abundance 

 really mean will continue the interest they have begun. The 

 beginners of last year are the veterans of this, their work will be 

 less discursive, more direct in results and better planned to meet 

 their individual needs. 



Conditions for the coming year will be more stable. Commercial 

 growers have been able to measure, with some degree of exactness, 

 the demands that will l)e made upon them in the production of 

 staple crops to supply the nation's needs in contributing their share 

 of the increased demand for export to the stricken nations of 

 Europe. 



The many people who raised crops in their own gardens will 

 continue to do so and the demand for fresh vegetables will be met 

 largely by local supplies. The actual quantity produced F. O. B. 

 the kitchen door is a great national asset. 



"War Garden" Results. 



The National War Garden Commission in a recent letter stands 

 by its originally published estimates of last summer which places 

 the value of food stuffs raised in emergency war gardens in 1918 

 at the prodigious total of $525,000,000. The number of individual 

 plots according to the same authority is 5,250,000, an increase of 

 51% over the previous year. And the dawn of peace does not 

 change the food situation as it will probably be several years before 

 the normal food reserves of the world can be restored. 



Surely with little indication of any material reduction in the 

 immediate future of the present high cost of living an augmented 

 interest in home gardening may be counted upon. At all events, 

 the incentive for cultivating the suburban back yard and the vacant 

 lot is urging on the home gardener with even greater insistence. 

 And he has learned how. 



With the change in industrial conditions and a resumption of 

 activity in building (which is already under way) the nmnbers of 

 small to moderate sized home gardens will be even greater than 



