CHAPTER XV 

 COMMUNITY CONSERVATION 



How American Cities Backed up the Cannon with the Canner 



ENORMOUS as was the quantity of food packed 

 away in cans by American housewives in the 

 summer of 1918, the quantity so conserved 

 represented only a fraction of the surplus of American 

 war gardens. Home canning could not begin to take 

 care of the excess, and therefore, in order that the 

 Scriptural injunction be followed and "nothing be lost," 

 it was necessary to establish conservation on a com- 

 munity basis, just as it had been found helpful to 

 stimulate production through community gardening. 

 These organized forms of conservation took the shape 

 of community markets for the distribution, and com- 

 munity canneries for the preservation, of the garden 

 surplus. 



Though the Commission limited its efforts along 

 these lines to the furnishing of instructions for conserv- 

 ing food, the work of the community centers for the 

 sale of garden surplus proved most helpful and is worthy 

 of mention. The usual custom was for the community 

 club or other organization conducting the market to 

 charge ten per cent, for selling the products. Many 

 war gardeners found the community markets an excel- 

 lent medium for disposing of surplus vegetables not 



needed for home consumption. Purchasers, too, were 

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