Every man who makes two blades grow where one grew 

 before helps reduce the high cost of food. There is no 

 other sure way. In the small gardens, which we now realize 

 are, after all, available to all who really want them, enough 

 can be grown to swing the balance and bring the cost of 

 food within the earning power of the ordinary working 

 man. This will relieve the pressure on the farmer, who 

 can produce special foods, not suitable to the small garden, 

 at a profit to himself and at a price within the means of the 

 people in the factories and cities. 



The terrible conditions which have opened the eyes of 

 all to the possibilities around them for gardens and food 

 production will soon pass away, but the food problem will 

 never pass away. Unless the more bulky and perishable 

 varieties of food are produced near home the same hard- 

 ships which have beset the American people will return in 

 double measure, till at last they are forced to a full reali- 

 zation of the food problem and how it may be solved. 



No one, unless he has been through the experience, 

 knows half the perplexities which beset the amateur gar- 

 dener. Bewildered by a mass of information in detached 

 form, much of which seems to contradict itself, he finds too 

 late that important steps have been omitted and that he 

 must wait a year before he can try again, with the lessons 

 drawn from his first failure as a guidepost on the new path. 



By gathering into one section the necessary information 

 regarding the culture of each important vegetable for the 

 home garden and arranging it so that the amateur may take 

 each necessary step in its proper turn, guided by clear, 

 explicit directions, we have endeavored to improve the 

 chances of his success greatly and to save him from much of 



