The Garden Magazine 



Get Together or Get Left - 



FOR three years, the allies on the 

 western front fought their in- 

 dividual battles. They fought well, 

 but achieved little. Finally, we 

 showed how to get together and big results 

 are on the way. 



The past three years have seen the home 

 gardens turned into "munition plants" each 

 summer — for food is ammunition. We have 

 fought the garden battles valiantly, each 

 individual doing the best he could. Results: 

 Satisfactory crops while we kept at it but 

 not very much to show for the work at the 

 end of the season. 



It is high time that home gardeners take 

 the lessons to heart. Instead of making 

 America a colossal vegetable farm of many 

 little units, it should be made a gigantic 

 cooperative enterprise in which each member 

 works for one general big objective rather 

 than to gratify individual desires. For- 

 tunately, the ground work for such organiza- 

 tion already exists. The National War 

 Garden Commission has already shown the 

 way. The gardens are started and the big 

 object now to be kept in mind is the saving 

 of every ounce of surplus, both individually 

 and collectively. 



In this matter of saving perishable garden 

 crops, the individual will always be to some 

 extent handicapped; sometimes only a little 

 surplus, hardly sufficient to warrant the 

 expense of time, labor and fuel, to conserve 

 it; at others, the excess crops of the garden 

 maturing so rapidly, that the individual finds 

 it beyond his ability to cope with the situation 

 single-handed. 



The solution is to be found in closer co- 

 operation among home gardeners in each 

 community. Let there arise in each town, 

 village and city a home garden exchange, 

 offering housekeepers the chances to dispose 

 of surplus and to cover needs. Let each 

 gardening community have a cooperative 

 canning kitchen of its own in which canning 

 "bees" could be held regularly, either for the 

 benefit of the hive or to benefit a great cause. 

 Make use of already existing machinery. 

 There are individuals and also bodies of 

 public spirited men and women in each com- 

 munity whose interests may be obtained. 

 The boy scouts or the campfire girls would 

 form ideal lines of communication. You, 



PREPARE FOR CANNING 



f The United States Food Administra- 

 tion urges all who have war gardens 

 to raise food wisely so that real needs 

 will be met without avoidable waste. 

 If Vegetables which can be easily 

 stored, such as potatoes, beans, beets, 

 carrots, turnips, parsnips, etc., should 

 be planted more extensively than the 

 green vegetables, f Green vegetables 

 should be raised to meet daily table 

 demands, and to furnish sufficient 

 quantities for convenient canning and 

 preserving. If Last year there was 

 great waste of green vegetables be- 

 cause they could not conveniently be 

 canned or dried at the time they were 

 ready to pick. 1f The National War 

 Garden Commission, Maryland Build- 

 ing, Washington D. C. has agreed to 

 send to any Garden Magazine reader, 

 its 1918 booklet, "Canning Vegetables 

 and Fruit". Write for it. 



who so gloriously battle for the Red Cross, 

 might well extend your patriotic energies 

 and dedicate a few hours each week to the 

 prevention of waste in home gardens. 



Let us have more canning kitchens, lest 

 the country will have to maintain soup houses 

 as in Europe, in which to feed the needy. 

 Let us can more food, collectively, lest he, 

 who is "over there," experience pangs of 

 hunger amidst perils which he is fighting 

 hard to keep away from our shores. 



Look Ahead : Canning and Fuel 



•A S THIS year's crop of food gardens nears 

 /\ the bearing stage, we may rest awhile 

 J W and take time for consideration of the 

 future. "What are you going to do 

 with the crops after you get them?" and 

 "how are you going to get the most out of 

 them?" are questions to be settled at once, if 

 the full benefit of the garden is to be realized. 

 The practical aspects of canning, drying, 

 and preserving vegetables are dealt with else- 

 where in this issue. But the question as to 

 what may or may not be canned profitably 

 is one to be answered by each individual, and 

 should be settled, on the basis of the nation's 

 resources rather than individual preferences. 



221 



Consider root crops for instance. With beets, 

 carrots, kohlrabi, etc., the home gardener 

 has the choice of either canning them while 

 young or of growing them to larger size suit- 

 able for storing in sand or soil for winter use. 

 Full-grown roots of these vegetables keep 

 better in soil storage because they are full of 

 fibre and the cell contents are matured. 



As is shown in a communication on another 

 page it costs more than twice as much in fuel 

 to cook full-grown vegetables as it does to 

 cook the small, canned product. If, with 

 coal at $10.00 per ton, it costs 5c. to 

 cook six large beets as taken from soil storage; 

 while an equal bulk, in the form of a dozen 

 small, canned beets requires but 2c. worth 

 of fuel to get them ready for the table; then 

 the practise of canning young crops needs no 

 further defense. 



The ultimate cost of putting the vegetables 

 etc., on the table during the winter must be a 

 determining factor in present moment plans. 

 It will make the cost of jars at a dollar per 

 dozen seem less high. In the long run, any 

 investment in canning apparatus, jars, and 

 other utensils made at this time means sub- 

 stantial savings later. Moreover, with rea- 

 sonable care, such investment bears interest 

 for years, while fuel, once consumed, is gone 

 forever. 



Is Your Garden Going to Suffer? 



TAKE a piece of sugar and dip the 

 lower end in your tea, coffee, or 

 water. Lift it out of the cup and 

 watch the moisture rise until it has 

 permeated every particle of the lump. You 

 are watching what the text books call "ascent 

 of liquid by capillary attraction," a process 

 that is in almost constant occurrence in your 

 own garden, which is going on this very min- 

 ute, in fact, unless it happens to be raining. 



Look at the cracks in your garden soil. 

 Toward these cracks or fissures, by way of 

 millions of minute channels, the moisture in 

 the soil works its way toward the surface, 

 to be evaporated by the moisture-absorbing 

 dry air. Where this process goes on for 

 weeks, perhaps months, plant life stops. 

 Land does not become a desert because the 

 soil is poor, but rather because it lacks mois- 

 ture. 



The garden can get along without sunshine 



