

THE PATRIOTIC GARDEN 



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Making a Nation of Garden Cities 



Charles Lathrop Pack, President, National War Garden Commission, Washington, D. C. 



HOME gardening has become a busi- 

 ness. It is just as much of a bus- 

 iness this year as manufacturing, 

 mining, building, agriculture, or any 

 other occupation. It has taken its place 

 alongside the big industries of the country 

 which employ hundreds of thousands of 

 people and produce millions of dollars' worth 

 of goods. 



In fact, home gardening has stepped almost 

 into the lead of all businesses. Both in the 

 number of persons occupied in the work and 

 in the value of the product it takes a front 

 place. 



With the exception of agriculture there is 

 no other occupation to which so many indivi- 

 duals are devoting themselves. More than 

 5,000,000 people in the United States are 

 this year cultivating back yards, vacant lots 

 and other city and town tracts which hitherto 

 have been "slacker" land. From a few 

 thousand the number of home food producers 

 has grown to unprecedented numbers. Many 

 other businesses have received wonderful 

 impetus from the activities and the necessities 

 of the war, but few of them can parallel that 

 of war gardening. 



The Home Munition Plant 



T3EFORE the entrance of the United 

 States into the war only a few scattered 

 homes in each city and town raised some of 

 their own vegetables. The war revealed the 

 value to the individual and the vital impor- 

 tance to the nation of producing all the food 

 that was possible. It showed the need of 

 utilizing every resource which would help to 

 win. 



The movement for home gardens every- 

 where, with every back yard and vacant lot 

 a "munition plant" growing ammunition, 

 which was organized and nationalized last 

 season by the National War Garden Com- 

 mission resulted in the planting of more than 

 3,000,000 such plots. The number has been 

 more than doubled this year, and will pro- 

 duce a wealth of food which will count heavily 

 in the war chest of the nation. 



DROBABLY no other appeal to the patri- 

 *■ otism of the American people ever met 

 with a more widespread and generous response 

 than "war gardening." It set the great 

 heart of America beating from coast to coast. 

 Inspired by the excellent showing made last 

 year and spurred on by the knowledge that 

 "food will win the war" men, women, and 

 children all over the United States took up 

 war gardening this year. Both as individuals 

 and as members of various organizations 

 they have gone about this as true soldiers of 

 the soil, in the same spirit with which their 



husbands, fathers, brothers and friends went 

 into the army and the navy. Many res- 

 ponses came as a result of the appeal printed 

 in the January number of The Garden 

 Magazine. 



The World's Eyes On Us 



/^\THER countries are writing for informa- 

 ^-^ tion about the Commission's work in 

 arousing the nation to war gardening. The 

 British Food Administration, Lord Rhondda, 

 director, has appointed a committee to keep 

 in touch with the work of the National War 

 Garden Commission with a view to adopting 

 and using such parts of the Commission's 

 plans and methods as may be applicable to the 

 British situation. The work of the National 

 War Garden Commission came to the atten- 

 tion of the British body, and in the belief that 

 England might still further increase her food 

 production along somewhat similar lines, it 

 was decided to incorporate some of our Amer- 

 ican methods to secure the use of every avail- 

 able foot of home gardens and community 



An army of school children was enlisted to help work at 

 local food production. Columbus, Ohio, is but typical of 

 many other cities 



land. In spite of the fact that there was 

 an increase of more than 1,000,000 acres in 

 the land cultivated in England last year, 

 there is still the opportunity of getting much 

 city land to work. 



Many of the people of England have small 

 home gardens and the British Food Admin- 

 istration determined to make war gardening 

 a national work. 



183 



Women's and Other Club Work 



TN THE United States women's clubs all 

 over the country have been particularly 

 active in spreading the message of home food 

 production. They have organized patriotic 

 garden clubs in hundreds of places. They 

 have established model gardens. They have 

 encouraged school children, under proper 

 supervision, to plant gardens of their own. 

 Demonstrations on canning have been con- 

 ducted by the Department of Agriculture and 

 other agencies and regular canning kitchens 

 opened where the home gardeners can bring 

 their extra product and conserve it either for 

 their own use, for sale or for distribution 

 among charitable or war relief insfitutions. 



Chambers of Commerce appointed garden 

 committees and distributed literature to 

 help the home gardeners. Civic associations 

 of all sorts have been active in encourag- 

 ing the campaign. Industrial concerns have 

 helped their employees to plant gardens, 

 furnishing them with the land, plowing it, 

 providing the fertilizer and the seeds, and 

 allowing the men to pay for these in easy 

 installments. Banks and other business con- 

 cerns have distributed hundreds of thousands 

 of the Commission's War Vegetable Garden- 

 ing books and its other literature. 



The General Federation of Women's Clubs 

 through its national organization and its 

 state and local bodies has called on the women 

 of the nation to ply the hoe as well as the 

 needle. Mrs. John Dickinson Sherman, chair- 

 man of the Conservation Department of the 

 Federation, is a member of the National War 

 Garden Commission, and as such sent out a 

 strong statement in which she said in part: 



American women are confronted by a condition and a respon- 

 sibility and opportunity without parallel in the history of the 

 world. There never was before a war in which women had a 

 recognized place outside of hospitals, but they now have a place 

 so important and responsible that this war cannot be won with- 

 out their help. To produce more food and to put increased pro- 

 duction to its best and fullest use is the immediate and urgent 

 work of the American people. 



The women have been active in the war 

 garden movement also through their state 

 councils of defense. The food production 

 committees of these bodies saw to the plant- 

 ing of as many community plots as was pos- 

 sible. As an illustration of what was done 

 in this direction, here is an extract from a 

 bulletin sent out to the county chairmen on 

 food production among women by Hortense 

 Tapp Moore, Indiana Chairman of Food Pro- 

 duction, Council of Defense: 



Our tables must be supplied with food raised on our own 

 premises. Women must get close to MOTHER EARTH 

 and make her yield as she has not for many years. The 

 woman who sits on her porch this year and crochets 

 and embroiders is a slacker. She is no better than the 

 woman who sits at .the bridge table, who slaves over dress or 

 who seeks diversion at the summer resorts while our sons and 

 brothers are giving up their lives that she may be safe. The 



