CHAPTER XV 
COMMUNITY CONSERVATION 
How American Cities Backed up the Cannon with the Canner 
E NORMOUS as was the quantity of food packed 
away in cans by American housewives in the 
summer of 1918, the quantity so conserved 
represented only a fraction of the surplus of American 
war gardens. Home canning could not begin to take 
care of the excess, and therefore, in order that the 
Scriptural injunction be followed and “nothing be lost,” 
it was necessary to establish conservation on a com- 
munity basis, just as it had been found helpful to 
stimulate production through community gardening. 
These organized forms of conservation took the shape 
of community markets for the distribution, and com- 
munity canneries for the preservation, of the garden 
surplus. 
Though the Commission limited its efforts along 
these lines to the furnishing of instructions for conserv- 
ing food, the work of the community centers for the 
sale of garden surplus proved most helpful and is worthy 
of mention. The usual custom was for the community 
club or other organization conducting the market to 
charge ten per cent, for selling the products. Many 
war gardeners found the community markets an excel- 
lent medium for disposing of surplus vegetables not 
needed for home consumption. Purchasers, too, were 
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