CHAPTER III 
HOW WAR GARDENS HELPED 
Every Gardener Became a Soldier of the Soil 
W HAT the “three R’s” mean to preparation for 
a life of peace, the three M’s become in the 
conduct of war. These three M’s stand for 
men, money and munitions. In its broadest sense, the 
term munitions includes everything needed by an army, 
and of all an army’s needs the basic and most im- 
portant is food. 
The quantities of food required by our army are 
huge. Dietitians estimate that the average man needs, 
daily, food that will furnish 3,500 calories. The United 
States army ration allows 4,700 calories to each man, 
and the unusual exertions demanded of our soldiers make 
it quite necessary that they have this generous allow- 
ance of food. With less they might lack that abundant 
supply of muscular and nervous energy upon which their 
very lives depend. 
Stated in terms of avoirdupois, the United States 
army ration is slightly in excess of four and a quarter 
pounds of food a man per diem. Four pounds of food 
does not seem like a great quantity. It allows each 
soldier twenty ounces of fresh beef a day, or its equiv- 
alent in fresh mutton, bacon, fish, turkey or other 
meat; eighteen ounces of flour or bread; twenty ounces 
of potatoes with proportionate amounts of other vege- 
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