CHAPTER V 

 UNCLE SAM'S FIRST WAR GARDEN 



How THE Boys at Camp Dix Went Over the Top 



WITH the mention of the word "war" there im- 

 mediately flashes across the mind a vision of 

 long lines of soldiers marching through streets 

 crowded with flag-waving civilians; or of those same 

 long lines drilling, wheeling, and maneuvering on the 

 camp parade-ground; or of stern-taced fighters with 

 bayonets fixed charging across a smoke-clouded field 

 toward the enemy's positions. It was most appropriate 

 and fitting, therefore, that the term "war garden" 

 should come to be associated with actual soldiers. 



It was at Camp Dix, New Jersey, that the first sure- 

 enough war garden was planted. At that big army 

 cantonment there was begun the first big undertaking 

 in the 'United States whereby the American army 

 started to help feed itself. 



Early in the spring of 1918 the National War Garden 

 Commission, cooperating with the conservation and 

 reclamation division of the Quartermaster-General's 

 office, effected the plans which promptly led to the plant- 

 ing of a four-hundred-acre war garden at Camp Dix, 

 that city of 48,000 or more soldiers where men were 

 being prepared for overseas duty. This was a demon- 

 stration garden Vv'hich was not only the largest but also 



the most picturesque the country had seen. It was not 

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