256 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



and by canning it, but they did not know- 

 how to can vegetables. Modern science 

 has found out how to do this, and now 

 the girls in the department of domestic 

 science in every agricultural college and 

 every agricultural high school in the 

 country are taught how to take vegetables 

 at the time when their flavor is most de- 

 licious and their texture the most tender 

 and put them up in glass jars for winter 

 use. 



Such preserved vegetables are far supe- 

 rior to those we ordinarily buy in tin 

 cans, for they receive a care in selection 

 and preparation that commercial can- 

 neries seldom give. 



Every pound of food grown and used 

 in this way is a contribution of just that 

 amount to the great stream of supplies 

 that we are passing on to the British and 

 the French soldier at the front, for what- 

 ever each of us consumes he must take 

 from that stream unless he produces it 

 himself. 



THE) WORK IS NOT SO DIFFICULT AS OF OLD 



In modern gardening the backache- 

 breeding hoe and weeder of a generation 

 ago have been replaced by those wonder- 

 ful little implements set on wheels and 

 pushed in front of one by two handles 

 like a plow. The heavy plowing and 

 planting of spring is still a man's task; 

 but these little hand cultivators make the 

 later care of a garden a happy outdoor 

 task for women and half-grown children. 

 It brings the bronzed cheek of summer 

 and the elastic step and clear mind of the 

 winter that follows. 



The congestion of freight traffic dur- 

 ing the last year was due primarily to the 

 scarcity of ships for the oversea trade, 

 the consequent filling up of warehouses 

 at the seaboard, and the delay of loaded 

 freight cars waiting their turn to deliver 

 their freight. The congestion was greatly 

 increased, however, through an agricul- 

 tural practice that has been growing up 

 in the United States for many years : the 

 raising of a special crop in that particular 

 part of the country in which it can be 



grown most economically or in the great- 

 est perfection and its shipment very long 

 distances by rail to the consumer. 



In times like the present every ton of 

 food that can be grown where it is con- 

 sumed, or not far from its place of con- 

 sumption, will relieve our railroads of 

 just that much space needed for the ur- 

 gent transportation demands of war. 



IT WILL HELP THE BELGIANS 



Because I suggest to the country dweller 

 that in growing his own supplies he will 

 be practising sounder economy and will 

 have better food, better health, and the 

 gladness of heart that comes from a pa- 

 triotic act, let no one lose sight of the fact 

 that the suggestion is made not primarily 

 for those reasons, but for the sake of that 

 gallant soldier who fights under the ban- 

 ner of "liberty, equality, fraternity," and 

 that other soldier who carries grimly in 

 his heart the message written in stone in 

 Trafalgar Square : "No price can be too 

 high when honor and freedom are at 

 stake." 



And the Belgians. What of them? 

 When in schoolboy days we used to read 

 the words, "Horum omnium fortissimi 

 sunt Belgae," we did not fully grasp their 

 meaning; but after Liege and Namur, 

 when Belgium stood broken and bleed- 

 ing, but still fighting and unafraid, the 

 spirit of the phrase burst upon us. "The 

 bravest of all these are the Belgians," the 

 very words that Julius Caesar wrote two 

 thousand years ago. 



No service in this war appeals to Amer- 

 ica more than to carry food to the Bel- 

 gians, in order to keep from hunger that 

 little nation which, single-handed, de- 

 fended the gateway of liberty. 



But first we must furnish food to the 

 British, the French, and the Italians. In 

 doing so we shall have the added satis- 

 faction of knowing that in spirit, if not 

 indeed in physical fact, we are taking it 

 also to the people of Belgium. 



Let each of us do his share toward 

 bearing bread to the Belgians. 



