THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 
17 
528,285,000 pounds of food. Actually, as we shall see 
later, the yield was many times as great. Yet the hand- 
ling of that vast weight of provender called for hardly 
a single public carrier of goods. The army of men 
which otherwise would have been needed to transmit 
this food from producer to consumer was thus released 
for other essential labor. It probably would not be 
possible to figure just how much was accomplished in 
this manner by the war gardeners of the United States; 
but it is safe to say that the men thus released for 
other work numbered many thousands. 
While this conservation of labor was being accom- 
plished there was a concurrent saving in still another 
way, through the release of thousands of freight-cars, 
motor-trucks, and wagons, for purposes other than the 
hauling of food. This saving, too, was most vital. At 
a time when every freight-car in the country was ur- 
gently needed for the hauling of raw materials to be 
used in the manufacture of munitions of war, for the 
transportation to the seacoast of finished products, and 
for hauling lumber and supplies to cantonments and 
army camps, it was essential that not one foot of freight 
space should be wasted. War gardening released 
thousands of cars for these essential needs. This saving, 
it must be remembered, involved also the conservation 
of coal and steam-power required in hauling, and pre- 
vented, as well, a great amount of wear and tear on 
railroad tracks and equipment. 
To secure all these ends a campaign of education 
was necessary. This campaign had to be extensive in 
