THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 75 



I am sure, enter into the purpose with high spirits, 

 because I am sure they would all like to feel that they 

 are in fact fighting in France by joining the home garden 

 army. They know that America has undertaken to 

 send meat and wheat and flour and other foods for the 

 support of the soldiers who are doing the fighting for 

 the men and women who are making the munitions, 

 and for the boys and girls of Western Europe, and that 

 we must also feed ourselves while we are carrying on 

 this war. The movement to establish gardens, there- 

 fore, and to have the children work in them is just as 

 real and patriotic an effort as the building of ships or 

 the firing of cannon. I hope that this spring every 

 school will have a regiment in the Volunteer War 

 Garden Army. 



Cordially and sincerely yours, 



WooDROw Wilson. 

 Hon. Franklin K. Lane, 

 Secretary of the Interior. 



From the outset the United States School Garden 

 Army allied itself with the National War Garden Com- 

 mission for the conduct of the work for which it had 

 been organized. This affiliation covered not only food 

 production through gardening but also the work of food 

 conservation through home canning and drying. 



One of the first requisites of the newly formed army 

 was that its membership should be reached with tech- 

 nical instructions so compiled as to be authoritative and 

 so presented as to be easily understood. To accomplish 

 this the United States School Garden Army utilized the 

 publications of the National War Garden Commission. 



