42 



THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 



meals, with the privilege, however, of purchasing supplies 

 from the hotel at favorable rates. Two at a time they 

 kept house, while the other six looked after the gardens. 

 None of these girls had had any previous experience 

 worth mentioning in the cultivation of the soil. Yet 

 they made very rapid progress in the art of gardening. 



Their success was un- 

 doubtedly due to the fact 

 that they stuck to a few 

 staple crops and did not 

 attempt too diversified 

 gardening. They raised 

 peas, lettuce, radishes, 

 carrots, beans, and other 

 common vegetables. Upon 

 beginning their work they 



A type of victory garden to brag about received inStrUCtioUS from 



the hotel farmer, Henry Bemis, who looks after some 

 of the larger tracts of land owned by the hotel manage- 

 ment, which are given over almost exclusively to the 

 raising of hay for the dairies. Such instruction was 

 not long necessary, however, as the young women 

 farmers speedily acquired considerable skill. 



Even gardening and haying did not occupy all their 

 time. One rainy day, when no gardening could be done 

 they went to a neighboring farm where there were 

 several thousand bushels of potatoes which had begun 

 to sprout. The visitors started "sprouting" with a 

 will and at the end of the day had averaged twenty- 

 five bushels each. They were told that ten bushels had 



