Ii8 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 
tation of convalescent soldiers. Around the hospitals 
in Europe, almost since the beginning of the war, vege- 
table plots have furnished the means for providing easy 
and pleasant outdoor work for convalescents, which 
acted as a tonic to their shattered nerves and bodies. 
Similarly, at the hospitals and army camps in the 
United States this form of activity was employed to 
help in the rebuilding of disabled and convalescing 
soldiers. 
In the great reconstruction work at the Walter Reed 
hospital, which lies in the outskirts of the nation’s 
capital, a fifteen-acre war garden proved of much thera- 
peutic value in the treatment of men suffering from 
various diseases. In addition to helping them regain 
their health and strength, gardening trained these men 
for the future and equipped them to make their own 
living and become valuable citizens of any community 
when they should leave active service. Part of the large 
war garden at Camp Dix, New Jersey, adjoined the base 
hospital; and potatoes and other vegetables were grow- 
ing during the season of 1918 up to the very porches on 
which some of the invalids had to sit in their wheel-chairs. 
Sailors as well as soldiers need fresh vegetables to 
eat, but they cannot grow vegetables at sea. To over- 
come this handicap a movement was started through- 
out the United Kingdom to give naval men a supply of 
fresh vegetables whenever they got to port. Navy 
vegetable rations formerly consisted of potatoes only, 
and a few dried or canned products which could be 
kept a long time and stored in small space. The new 
