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THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 1918 



by planting the white varieties. For the 

 author describes one breed of Crosby as "of 

 very choicest quality;" White Evergreen as 

 "Choicest strain" and Country Gentleman 

 as "Best Flavored of all real table kinds." 

 Two of these are extremely misleading and 

 the description of Country Gentleman is 

 absolutely false. Not any of these are worthy 

 of being classed as "sweet corn," now that 

 Golden Bantam is on the market. The 

 descriptions are still more misleading on 

 account of the faint praise given Golden 

 Bantam and the omission of Black Mexican. 

 The reasons for my writing on this subject 

 are two: First. When I first began planting 

 a home garden several years ago I did not 

 know much about varieties and had to depend 

 on the descriptions. As no real distinction 

 was made between the sweet and the tasteless 

 corn and peas, I wasted a large part of my 

 time, ground and energy, until I had tried 

 and discarded most of the so-called popular 

 sorts. I suppose thousands of people are 

 going through the same experience, and no 

 doubt many of them will give it up in disgust 

 when they find that the stuff they are advised 

 to grow is no better than that raised to sell 

 and selected solely for its appearance, shipping 

 and keeping qualities, and productiveness. 

 Second. I would like to find a better yielding 

 variety than Golden Bantam, but just as 



sweet. As I cannot believe the catalogues, or 

 even The Garden Magazine, I have stopped 

 experimenting except with the yellow kinds. 

 I am having a similar trouble with peas, Blue 

 Bantam being the best I have found so far. 



Now I solemnly protest that you are not 

 doing your duty by your readers, that you are 

 hindering the development of amateur garden- 

 ing, that you are discouraging that class of 

 gardeners, and even contributing to the high 

 cost of living when you disseminate such mis- 

 leading statements as those contained in the 

 article abovementioned. In my opinion all the 

 white kinds of corn that I have triedoughttobe 

 put down as "tender field corn" not as "sweet 

 corn." — Albert E. Fay, Worcester, Mass. 

 — It was an error to print after Country 

 Gentleman "Best flavored of all real table 

 kinds." The word "real" should have read 

 "late." Black Mexican is not recommended 

 because it discolors the cooking utensils in a 

 fashion most discouraging to the housewife. 

 The six kinds of white sweet corn recom- 

 mended are the choicest of 'about twenty 

 distinct sorts and strains available. Since 75 

 per cent, of all the people in this country still 

 look with suspicion upon all yellow corn 

 offered as a sweet corn, it is obvious that an 

 article designed to serve the country at large 

 cannot confine itself to Golden Bantam. If 

 Mr. Fay cares to "take a chance" with a pea 



that I consider superior to Blue Bantam in 

 both flavor and yielding power, let him try 

 Little Marvel. It is sweeter, though the 

 pods are not as large. — A. Kruhm. 

 — Speaking of yellow corn let us enter a word 

 for Golden Orange as a sweet corn for the 

 home gardener. The ear is larger than Ban- 

 tam, and the ranks are two more on the cob; 

 it makes a stronger, taller stalk. Sown very 

 early it seems to be less hardy so is not a 

 substitute for first early. Late sowings last 

 year gave us no difference in maturity ; but (and 

 herein lies its merit) it has a longer period 

 of quality; moreover it does not "crop" all at 

 once, thus giving a longer season to the patch. 

 At least that is how it behaved last year in 

 our garden. — L. B. 



Extravagance of Collards. — In the South 

 I had heard so much of the collard I 

 thought I would try it. It grew nicely but 

 had two great faults that made it not profit- 

 able as a substitute for cabbage. In the first 

 place, the leaves, are loose, and grew and 

 curled out instead of in, so it took up too 

 much space. Three collards took up the 

 same amount of room as five cabbages. The 

 weight, too, had to be considered. It took 

 five collards to equal the weight of one small 

 cabbage. So collards were crossed off my 

 list. — Emily Halson Rowland, Conn. 



PLAN TO PLANT— THE CALL OF 1918 



THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY FOOD GARDEN COMMISSION APPEALS TO THE READERS OF THE 



GARDEN MAGAZINE 



NOW, gardeners of America, comes the call of 

 nineteen-eighteen. To you who were members 

 of that great army of Soldiers of the Soil last 

 year the call is a joyous one for your labor was 

 well done. But this year that army must be doubled. Each 

 of you must enlist at least another to produce "Food 

 F. 0. B. The Kitchen Door." The joys of work in the soil 

 none know better than you, and so you must bring with 

 you a recruit for this great work of patriotic planting. 

 Your boys are in the trenches and they must be fed. You 

 do not have to be a soldier to shoot; for the home grown 

 ammunition, making a barricade against General Hunger, 

 is just as important as the aim of the man who directs the 

 firing of the "seventy-fives." The staggering load the 

 god of war demands we carry in the shape of a food problem 

 is best told in the figures that estimate the number of 

 men under arms. That number is thirty-eight million. 

 The estimated cost of feeding a soldier has been placed at 

 forty cents a day. Reduced to money that means that 

 the daily food bill of the soldiers of the world now at war 

 is $15,200,000 a day. 



These men have suddenly been withdrawn from the 

 economic scheme of things and have become non-producers. 

 This puts the burden upon each of us to produce more 

 food than ever before. The Kaiser, we are told, has every 

 inch of available ground under cultivation, and every 

 prisoner able to walk is at work tilling the soil. The enemy 

 realizes what the food question means. Are we to sit by 

 and see the boys we have sent to the trenches fail for the 

 lack of food? If they do fail it will be for but one reason 

 — for the American soldier will die fighting and in the name 

 of Humanity let us not let him die starving. 



To the work of the war gardener last year careful esti- 

 mates credit food valued at $350,000,000. The importance 

 of this is best shown in the tremendous food bill of the 

 armies of the world which I have just cited. But there is 

 another great reason for increased war garden production. 

 There has been a tremendous rush to our cities because of 

 the call of war work. Housing problems confront every 

 municipality as they never have before. City councils and 

 chambers of commerce are taking up means of solution 

 everywhere. On one page we read of suggestions to relieve 

 crowded conditions and on the very next page we- read 

 suggestions for enforcing farm labor. Everywhere the 

 farmer is calling for help. There can be but one result of 

 this rush to the cities and that is increased cost of living. 

 Right here the gardener is destined to play a great part in 

 this war. It is for him to produce close to the point of 

 consumption and thereby save not only handling charges 

 but relieve railroads of as much of the transportation 

 burden as possible. 



As never before the thought of the people has been 

 turned back to the soil and to the value of land. Mother 

 Earth is kind, as you gardeners know, and she will continue 

 to be kind to us as long as we do not desert her and forget 

 her in this mad rush to the cities in an endeavor to gain 

 war wealth in dollars. Those dollars will avail you nothing 

 without proper food and health which go hand in hand 

 and can only be obtained from the soil. The hand of 

 Hunger must never grip this land and it never will as long 

 as the gardener, that Soldier of the Soil, enlists as he has en- 

 listed in the past to " do his bit " for Liberty and his Country. 



Washington, D. C. Charles Lathrop Pack, 



President of the Commission 



