158 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 
Scientists have pointed the way and by their careful 
research have discovered methods by which potatoes 
and other vegetables can be dried so that they will re- 
tain all their original flavor and food value over long 
periods of time and under all conditions of weather and 
temperature. In going into the work on a commercial 
scale and in preparing such food for large bodies of peo- 
ple such as an army, where some of the products may 
not be consumed for many months and where they are 
likely to undergo many changes of temperature in being 
transported from place to place, it is necessary, of course, 
to observe scientific precision in the preparation and 
packing of the goods. For home consumption no such 
elaborate processes need be followed. This is why any 
household may prepare with ease its own supplies of 
this sort. As practiced in the home, vegetable and 
fruit drying is largely a matter of following with rea- 
sonable care a few simple rules. During the season of 
1918 the National War Garden Commission distrib- 
uted throughout the United States almost two mil- 
lion copies of its canning and drying book which gave 
all needed instructions. Thousands of war gardeners, 
both as individuals and through community effort, 
added a considerable amount to their winter store by 
vegetable and fruit drying. 
It was during the Boer War that dried foods were 
used for the first time to any extent in the provisioning 
of an army. Large quantities of these goods were ship- 
ped from Canada to South Africa by the British War 
Office, and the experiment proved a complete success. 
