The Garden Magazine 



oz&cw^p .-•■-' : 

 L. 1 



America's Awakening 



IT WAS exactly a year ago, in the issue 

 of May, 1917, that The Garden Maga- 

 zine carried to its readers certain parts of 

 the President's electrifying appeal of April 

 15th containing the memorable and the 

 much quoted sentence "Everyone who cre- 

 ates or cultivates a garden helps, and helps 

 greatly, to solve the problem of the feeding 

 of the nations." 



The retrospect is instructive and inspiring. 

 In the twelve months that have elapsed 

 since that time, home (and as it is sometimes 

 called backyard) gardening in America has 

 been given such an impetus and has gained 

 such momentum that, whereas a year ago it 

 used to be said (with much truth) that garden- 

 ing was nothing but an occasional pastime 

 to the average American, it is to-day a serious 

 avocation. To-day the man or woman who 

 does not do some gardening is the exception, 

 rather than the rule. 



Home gardening in America has found it- 

 self. To be known as a gardener to-day is 

 to be recognized as one who is rendering a 

 certain measure of service in the national 

 need. The machinery by which this radical 

 change has been wrought has been but little 

 realized. More than a month before the 

 President's appeal, a Commission now known 

 as the National War Garden Commission 

 was organized under the presidency of Mr. 

 Charles Lathrop Pack of Lakewood, N. J., 

 and Mr. Percival S. Ridsdale of Washington, 

 D. C, as secretary. The other members 

 of the Commission are: Mr. Luther Burbank, 

 Hon. P. P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of 

 Education, Dr. Charles W. Eliot, Dr. Irving 

 Fisher, Mr. Fred H. Goff, Mr. John Hays 

 Hammond, Mr. Fairfax Harrison, Hon. 

 Myron T. Herrick, Dr. John Grier Hibben, 

 Mr. Emerson McMillin, Mr. A. W. Shaw, 

 Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman, Capt. J. B. 

 White, and Hon. James Wilson. Since then 

 the well directed energies of the president and 

 secretary, with their associates on the Com- 

 mission, have indeed given the great public an 

 entirely new conception of the resources and 

 capacity of the home garden, or as it is now 

 appropriately called, the war garden. 



Elsewhere in this issue the method of opera- 

 tion by this Commission is discussed by its 

 official representative. 



Those of us who have always been more or 



less believers of the ultimate arrival of the 

 garden as a national institution now find our- 

 selves overtaken, overwhelmed, and passed 

 by the on-rush of recruits, which is very 

 largely due to the stimulus given through the 

 National War Garden Commission. This 

 Commission is a splendid illustration of what 

 such a thing can be. It has worked along 

 original lines, cooperating freely with every 

 and any organization or individual that was 

 in a position to bring influence to bear in 

 increasing the interest in garden work. Its 

 function is to give "Service." Where organ- 

 izers are needed it sends efficient ones; where 

 instruction is required it sends the best avail- 

 able; where general literature is desired it 

 sends a variety which answers all needs. Its 

 function being "Service" the Commission 

 has specialized as far as congested express 

 and mail lines will permit it, in giving im- 

 mediate response to each and every demand 

 for its assistance by individual, community 

 organization, corporation, city, county or 

 state. 



Furthermore, and most important, it has 

 sent its representatives throughout the coun- 

 try stirring up interest in garden planting 

 wherever it found apathy or lack of local en- 

 deavor, and by leading the way, and furnish- 

 ing instruction it has, in its little more than a 

 year of life, started the garden "bug" from 

 coast to coast. 



The Commission has had no axe to grind and 

 has looked for nothing but results, and its 

 members, led by their active and energetic 

 president, have given their means and their 



TJY arrangement with the National 

 -*-* War Garden Commission, The 

 Garden Magazine offers its readers 

 any of the following publications free: 



If War Vegetable Gardening, 32 pages, 

 profusely illustrated. 



If Canning of Vegetables and Fruits, 32 

 pages, profusely illustrated. 



D Grow War Munitions at Home. 



1f War Gardening by Communities. 



If War Gardening by Corporations. 



Write for them to National War 

 Garden Commission, Washington, D. C. 



endeavor as a patriotic contribution to their 

 country's war time needs. 



To the public at large the Commission it- 

 self has not been so evident as the results of 

 its work. Its book "War Vegetable Garden- 

 ing and the Home Storage of Vegetables" 

 (1918 edition) which has been freely distrib- 

 uted this year has already reached a total of 

 millions of copies; and in its 32 pages presents 

 a veritable multum in parvo of practical man- 

 agement for the small garden. Besides distrib- 

 uting numerous pamphlets and leaflets it has 

 also issued a news service for the daily and 

 weekly newspapers which have responded 

 nobly by generous use of their space in print- 

 ing special articles on gardening and daily 

 lessons on how and what to do. 



In addition to the gardening manual just 

 referred to, other important publications of 

 the Commission include: "How Home Gar- 

 deners Can Help Feed the Army," "Daylight 

 Saving, War Gardens, and Army Food," 

 "Grow War Munitions at Home," "Slacker 

 Land and Food Facts," "War Vegetable 

 Gardening by Communities and Neighbor- 

 hoods," "War Gardening by Corporations." 

 In addition, a manual on Home Canning 

 and Home Drying of Vegetables and Fruits, 

 with directions for pickling, fermenting and 

 other forms of household conservation — a 

 freely illustrated, practical handbook — is also 

 now ready for distribution, for, following the 

 garden planting campaign the Commission 

 gives all its force and influence to the conserva- 

 tion of garden products by canning, drying, 

 storage, and in other ways. 



The immense importance of the garden 

 as a factor in national service is even as yet 

 hardly realized. Last year, according to 

 official figures, it is reported that the home 

 garden movement added to the food pro- 

 duction of the country an amount worth 

 #350,000,000. Every pound of food grown at 

 home and consumed at home liberates an 

 equivalent in the ordinary channel of com- 

 merce. Three or four pounds of potatoes, 

 parsnips, onions, or sweet corn save a pound 

 of beef or a pound of bread. Every leaf of 

 lettuce, every stalk of celery, every bunch 

 of beets raised on hitherto unproductive land 

 is just so much direct contribution to the 

 nation's output. 



Beans and peas are rich in proteins. One 

 pound of dried navy beans contains 1605 

 calories — almost the equivalent of a pound of 



177 



