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VICTORY GARDENS 



FOOD FOB THE KITCHEN DGD& 



America a Nation of Gardeners 



WE AMERICANS ought to be a nation 

 of gardeners. Nature intended that 

 we should. And this applies to the 

 man in the city as well as in the rural 

 districts." 



That is the message to the people of the United 

 States from a Chicago newspaper man who last 

 year planted the first garden he had ever cul- 

 tivated in his life, who was awarded the first prize 

 by the State Council of Defense and who found 

 so much joy and satisfaction in studying and 

 caring for his plants that he has "joined up" for 

 good. 



This man, W. E. Babb, a "cliff dweller" in one 

 of Chicago's big apartment houses, after telling 

 how he went into war gardening as a patriotic 

 duty, having "dug up a carload of junk" in the 

 vacant lot adjoining the apartment before he 

 could begin tilling, adds: 



"And there was something more. I learned 

 that vegetables are interesting things to raise! I 

 tried raising chickens once and got a lot of real 

 pleasure out of it, but it didn't compare with the 

 joy I got out of my war garden." 



Incidentally he makes a very interesting ob- 

 servation regarding the average American boy, 

 when he says: "I put up a war garden sign over 

 the lot with the inscription: 'All ammunition 

 doesn't come from the powder factories;' and then 

 set out to prove it. The lot was not protected 

 by a fence. It was open to the boulevard in front 

 and to the alley in the rear. The neighborhood 

 was alive with boys of a mischievous age. But 

 from the day I began work in early Aprfl until I 

 harvested my final crops late in September, not 

 a plant was disturbed, which leads me to observe 

 that the average American boy is about the most 

 patriotic part of our democracy." 



Why, then, should America not be a "nation 

 of gardeners?" Nature has furnished the soil 

 and the climate which have been denied to many 

 other countries. Hundreds of thousands of per- 

 sons, have acquired their first taste of gardening 

 as a result of patriotic urge, but they have found 

 a deep and genuine pleasure in the work and are 

 going to continue as home food producers. 

 " Never again will we be denied the happy knowl- 

 edge of Nature which comes from tilling the soil 

 and the satisfaction which comes from gathering 

 part of our own food fresh and crisp close to the 

 kitchen door," is the testimony of a New Haven 

 "city farmer;" and similar welcome words have 

 come from many others who while helping others 

 have discovered joy to their own souls. 



Make the garden lasting! I here is no reason 

 why this cannot be done. It should be one of the 

 permanent blessings resulting from the war. 

 Through the nation-wide campaign for home food 

 production which has been carried on, the Ameri- 

 can people have been taught a wonderful lesson, 

 and much of what they have learned they will 

 not soon forget. That thrift which added so 

 much to the strength of France has become a 

 habit of millions in this country. The same must 

 be true of gardening. 



There is still the vital necessity for increased 



Daylight Saving Begins 

 March 30 



Set the clock ahead one hour on the 

 last Sunday in March. Summer time 

 begins then. 



food raising. This condition will not pass for a 

 long time to come, some years at least. Under 

 this incentive, therefore, there should come to be 

 more and more of a permanency to the " business " 

 of city farming. As the great poet Milton said 

 of his works, it is something "the world will not 

 willingly let die." With the nation called on this 

 year to go in for "victory gardening" even more 

 intensively and more extensively than they did 

 for war gardening, there is no reason why the 

 campaign for "food f. o. b. the kitchen door" 

 should not be made a permanent proposition. 



Again this year the Daylight Saving law is 

 with us to help the home gardener and to give 

 him that extra hour every afternoon which he can 

 use so well in caring for his vegetable plot. It. 

 was a wonderful help last year. For seven whole 



Only an odd lot adjoining a big city apartment house in Chicago 

 — but it is one of the many war gardens that have come to stay 

 as long as the land is available 



months, from the last Sunday in March until the 

 last Sunday in October, it makes the sun to shine 

 one hour longer for the man whose vocation is 

 in the office and house. One of the main pur- 

 poses of Congress when it passed the law early 

 last spring and decided to make it permanent 

 was that it would be of great assistance in food 

 production. Many people have thought that the 

 Daylight Saving law was for one year only but 

 such is not the case. 



76 



Aroused by the existing world need for food, 

 .the Victory Garden campaign this year promises 

 to exceed the war garden planting of 1918, ac- 

 cording to the plans of cooperation with the 

 National War Garden Commission which have 

 been extended by organizations of all kinds 

 throughout the United States. They realize 

 that there is greater need for food than ever be- 

 fore, that the World War for Food must be won 

 before there can be any real enjoyment of the 

 fruits of military victory, and that the best anti- 

 dote with which to fight the ugly menace of Bol- 

 shevism is food. Pestilence and panic are the 

 daughters of famine. 



In connection with the "own a home" cam- 

 paign which is being carried on throughout the 

 United States this year, the value of the garden 

 as an added asset will be emphasized by the 

 builders and the real estate men. The home is 

 the cornerstone of the nation, and the garden is 

 the cement which helps to hold this cornerstone 

 in place. In a resolution adopted by the Ad- 

 vertising Club of Washington and forwarded to 

 the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, 

 the members of that body were urged to get back 

 of the campaign for Victory Gardens "by using 

 window displays and garden copy wherever pos- 

 sible in order to carry the message of 'food f. o. b. 

 the kitchen door' to the people." 



From the far-off Philippines comes the report 

 that "home gardening has been one of the prin- 

 cipal features of the campaign in the Islands for 

 greater food production." It is from the secre- 

 tary of agriculture and natural resources, who 

 tells how provincial and municipal food com- 

 mittees and civic clubs have been organized, and 

 how the women's clubs are contributing greatly 

 to the work by arousing interest in the movement 

 among the women of the country. The pro- 

 vincial and municipal officers have urged the 

 planting of gardens in the public plazas or 

 squares, where they "would be a constant re- 

 minder to the inhabitants of the entire com- 

 munity of the need for such effort." 



And then Japan is going to teach its people 

 how to plant home gardens. This is part of the 

 message which has spread all over the world as a 

 result of the National War Garden Commission's 

 campaign. S. B. Honda, a member of the Japa- 

 nese trade commission which has been visiting 

 the United States, and also connected with the 

 Japanese Department of Agriculture, in speaking 

 of this subject says: 



"Our people know very little about home food 

 production. The yards of our homes are, of 

 course, devoted to flowers. Our people pay a 

 great deal of attention to the growing of beauti- 

 ful plants. We pride ourselves upon this but the 

 food situation has become such that we must take 

 up that question more fully. A government 

 survey of idle land is being made and people will 

 be encouraged to cultivate all the land possible. 



Fight Bolshevism with food the world around! 

 Let that be the rallying cry of the Victory Gar- 

 deners of 1919. Food is the fortress upon which 

 the "frontiers of freedom" must be maintained. 



