132 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 
showed the success that attended this effort. Typical 
of the spirit that animated many of these reports is a 
statement in a communication from J. D. Parnell, 
secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, Vernon, Texas. 
Mr. Parnell wrote : 
We have a community canner and are preserving 
everything that we grow. We are also going outside of 
our county into the communities where they are not 
equipped topreserve perishable stuff and buyingsurplus. 
We can it and sell it to those who have no gardens. 
Home demonstration agents of the United States 
Department of Agriculture, women’s clubs, represen- 
tatives of manufacturing concerns, gas and electric 
companies, and numerous individuals cooperated in this 
community canning. “The Federation of Women’s 
Clubs and myself cooperating will supervise the mar- 
keting and the canning of the surplus products of 
the gardens,” was the report to the Commission from 
Miss Anna Allen, emergency home demonstration agent 
at Independence, Kansas. Similar work was performed 
in hundreds of places. 
The success of these community canneries is indi- 
cated by many reports such as one from Dallas, Texas, 
which boasted of 20,000 war gardens in 1918, with 17,500 
cans of vegetables preserved after the plant had been in 
operation only a few weeks. This same Texas report 
told of community canneries at Austin, Beaumont, 
Marshall, and Corsicana. The last named was in the 
Odd Fellows Hall and was operated by the children. 
During the first week of its existence the community 
