GAUGE YOUR FUTURE FOOD REQUIREMENTS 
HOWARD EARL and ADOLPH KRUHM 
In Face of Lessened Acreage in Common Vegetables a Serious Shortage and Soaring Prices Face Us in the 
Fall. Turn While There Is Yet Time to Home Production by Planting for Winter Storage to Defeat the 
Inevitable High Prices of the Market 
S ORE than five million bushels of Potatoes imported 
during the past eighteen months from “starving” 
Europe into this land of plenty! Shiploads of Cabbage, 
Onions and other vegetables from abroad finding an in- 
creasingly profitable market in America — supposedly leading 
the world in food production. And the prospect of tomatoes 
at io cents apiece is a stern reality that we have to face. 
To aggravate matters, the wheat crop of 1920 promises to be 
30 per cent, shorter than last year’s short crop, while producers 
— farmers and truckers — have curtailed acreage devoted to 
vegetable crops because of labor scarcity and high wage de- 
mands. This is a calamity — yet why blame the farmer since, 
with an indifference as amazing as it is fraught with danger 
for the future, we merrily chase the foot of the rainbow, when we 
should be preparing our forces to increase the produce of the 
earth in food supplies? 
With these facts in mind The Garden Magazine reader is 
asked to consider seriously the making of food gardens this 
month. Unless he is willing to pay exorbitant prices for veg- 
etables of all kinds, he must now at once direct his enthusiasm 
for the garden toward real work in the humble Potato plot 
and Cabbage patch. The home garden is a potential gold mine! 
Take stock of what you already have provided for in the 
kitchen garden and make plans to augment the prospective 
supply with other crops designed to reduce living costs during 
the fall and coming winter. Plan to grow a liberal surplus of 
everything fit to be canned or stored away in sand or soil. There 
are growing in America to-day in commercial fields, several 
billion less Tomato plants than a year ago. The contract price 
for tomato pulp at the canning factories is more than $30.00 per 
ton — an advance of nearly 200 per cent, more than normal. 
That means that the purchaser will have to pay at least 33 cents 
a can for tomatoes next winter. But to those who have the land 
available the future can be discounted. June brings the op- 
portunity of setting out some Tomato plants. 
B UT let us tackle the whole problem systematically! Get a 
pad and a pencil and get busy while there is yet time. 
Fortunately every vegetable will yield crops from seeds sown 
during June or later. It is of course too late this month to 
sow for an early crop of Peas, and too early to sow for a late 
crop. It is better to wait until July to sow Lettuce for fall use, 
as well as Chinese Cabbage. And unless you can get extra 
sturdy, well-rooted plants of Celery, and have an abundant water 
supply, don’t waste time on that crop. 
The selection of the proper variety of any given vegetable is a 
matter of real concern if the quantities estimated above, and 
of good quality as well, are to be realized. And indeed there is 
no excuse for failure. The latitude given above in number of 
days required to gather crops is determined according to the time 
required by different varieties to reach maturity. And be it 
remembered that all sorts requiring the longer periods to reach 
fair size, are invariably the best keepers. Thus, you can 
gather Crosby’s Beets within fifty days after seeds were sown; 
but you will find Early Model Beet, needing seventy-five days to 
reach acceptable size, is a much better keeper. 
Among bush beans, Bountiful, Full Measure, Stringless 
Green Pod, and Stringless Refugee, will yield green podded 
crops in the order mentioned. Among the wax or yellow-podded 
kinds, New Kidney Wax, Sure Crop Wax and Brittle Wax will 
duplicate performance records of the green sorts. Sow all in 
rows two feet apart, dropping seeds four inches apart in row. 
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