THE DEMONSTRATION WORK 



tin, and went out in the neighborhood to help and teach those women 

 to can and seal in tin, as they had never had the experience in tin 

 before.' " 



Nineteen hundred eighteen was the banner year in the 

 food production lines to date, but the achievements were made 

 possible by the training and experience of the previous years 

 which constituted a wonderful bit of preparedness. A few 

 facts and statistics of this notable year follow : 



In the fifteen Southern States there were 9,026 Girls' 

 Clubs organized by the Home Demonstration Agents. These 

 Clubs had a total membership of 286,278. Of these members 

 77,264 cultivated 1/10-acre plots; others had 1/20 acre, and 

 still others were in bread clubs and poultry clubs. Many of the 

 girls have had to fill the place of some man of the family called 

 to the army and have faithfully attended to the work of 

 planting, cultivating and harvesting crops besides trying to 

 keep up their own plots and can the crops raised there. This 

 extra labor would have been almost impossible if it had not 

 been for the training in the Canning Clubs. During the season 

 a large amount of fresh vegetables was sold by the Club girls, 

 as the demand by the war activities, shipyards and army 

 camps, in many places, made excellent markets for their fresh 

 products. Hence, the canning was not pushed to quite as 

 great an extent as it otherwise would have been. Still the 

 club girls put up 6,629,590 containers of vegetables for home 

 use and for market, valued at $1,511,713.32 from their 1/10- 

 acre plots. The girls also put up 65,734 containers of fruit 

 from their 1/10-acre plots, valued at $18,926.25. From the 

 farm and orchard, as well as wild fruits collected by the 

 girls, they put up an additional 3,850,178 containers of vege- 

 tables and fruits, valued at $860,563.10; 54,128 cans of meats 

 and fish were canned by the club girls, valued at $16,150.41. 



[74] 



