38 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 
of Seattle, Washington, whose husband wore his 
country’s uniform, well shows the spirit that animated 
these women gardeners: 
“Thanks for the war vegetable gardening booklet 
you sent me in the spring,” she says. “My husband is 
in the navy and I have two small babies, but that did 
not keep me from raising 
a garden. We have a 
plot fifty by two hundred 
feet, and every inch is in 
something. I wish you 
could see it. I weigh 
ninety-eight pounds but I 
am going to do my bit. 
Now I wish you would 
send me your home can- 
This type of green goods will cure the blues ning and drying book.” 
F rom Mrs . G. P. Dutcher, of Arlington, Massachusetts, 
came this other typical communication : “ I was seventy- 
eight years old on March thirty-first. I expect to raise 
what beans I need for a family of three for the next 
year. I did it last year and did all my own planting.” 
We see the significance and worth of this woman’s 
service when we realize that a day’s rations for one 
million United States soldiers includes 75,000 pounds 
of beans, and that we raised an army of approximately 
four million men! This enormous demand for beans 
had to be met from commercial supplies that could 
be increased, because of labor shortage, only slightly 
above the pre-war production. So we had the army 
