22 
House & Garden 
L ong before this has the alarm been sounded. 
j The cry has gone down the land to all who 
labor in the fields, “Raise your bit!” 
America must feed herself and her allies. The President has 
warned us that we cannot be found wanting in “the things with¬ 
out which mere fighting would be fruitless.” 
The trenches of our war, then, are the furrows of the field. 
The man behind the plow is fighting for this great cause of liberty 
as much to-day as the man behind the gun. 
The American farmer will ultimately “see it through,” for he is 
helping to make this world a safe place for Democracy by feeding 
the forces that are fighting for Democracy. 
The lines of defense are Fighters, Funds, Factories, Food. 
must now labor to support hands that toil in 
munition factory and battle trench. We who 
have been too proud to fight must now in humility 
expiate our iniquities and vain boast. 
Flere is America’s greatest chance for service. Flere lies the path 
for the redemption of her national soul. Never before did war 
ofifer to every man, woman and child in a nation such an oppor¬ 
tunity to do his bit for the attainment of a world ideal. 
The war will mean other sacrifices. Certainly that in full measure 
—the sacrifice of men, the crushed hopes of women, the lonely com¬ 
ing years. It will cut ruthlessly across promising careers and well- 
laid schemes. It will impoverish the rich and beggar the poor. For 
many it may mean a lean larder and an empty purse. But these 
things must be. If ever we expect the Angel of Wrath to pass over, 
we must sprinkle our lintels with our own blood. 
T 
W E must raise our bit, or we and 
our war-worn allies will starve. 
This is a solemn fact. The surplus 
from last year’s crops—which was far 
below normal—has been drained for 
the nations overseas. Some of it has 
been lost in torpedoed vessels, some of 
it destroyed by incendiary fires. We 
must make up not alone what will suf¬ 
fice for our consumption now, but 
enough to see us all through until the 
harvests of 1918. That means 100,- 
000,000 mouths to feed here, and many 
millions more over there. 
We must raise our bit, or hosts of 
men will have died in vain. As the 
President has phrased it, “Without 
abundant food, alike for the armies 
and the peoples now at war, the whole 
great enterprise upon which we have 
embarked will break down and fail. 
The world’s food reserves are low. 
Not only during the present emer¬ 
gency, but for some time after peace 
shall have come, both our own people 
and a large proportion of the people 
of Europe must rely upon the harvests 
in America.” 
Our hands, weaponed not to smite, 
‘ HREE springs had come, three summers; and thrice we 
gathered in the harvest. 
This spring, we thought, would be like all the rest—the warm and 
gentle rains, the suns that coax to life the tiny seed, the wakened 
bud, the green shoots above the furrow, the sturdy crop. Another 
summer would creep past, and then an¬ 
other autumn when, happily, we could 
put the ripe harvest to the sickle. 
Suddenly we turned and faced the 
hideous fact. For three years we had 
hid from it, denied it in our hearts, 
labored to put it out of mind. 
Spring came, and with spring the 
War—their war, our war. 
W’e are in it now, in it that the world 
may henceforth be a safe place for men 
to live and labor. No longer can we 
flee from its realities, no longer deny 
our responsibility. We have placed 
our hands upon the plow. And with 
that plow shall we win. 
T he coming 
: 
OUT 
O F 
TOWN 
1 
The Out-of-Town is luring me— 
I want to be 
Where I can see 
A glint of Summer as she passes. 
Green and glad, among the grasses! 
I like the City with its air 
Of do and dare— 
Its glamored glare— 
But oh, the lovely, languid hours. 
Idled with the garden flowers! 
months will decide our fate and the fate of our gal¬ 
lant allies. June, July and August are the critical months for 
growing things. Pests must be hunted down and exterminated. 
Dust mulch must be carefully pre¬ 
served around the roots to make the 
-! moisture below yield its maximum 
service. If drought comes, water will 
have to be carried to the thirsty plants. 
This means real work. It means work¬ 
ing when we don’t want to, when in¬ 
terest has flagged and courage failed. 
The discipline is self-imposed. That 
is all the more reason why it should be 
unfalteringly observed. 
Many of us have started our gardens 
with a high resolve to raise as much as 
we could for our own tables so that the 
burden on the market might be re¬ 
lieved. That sort of resolve rouses al¬ 
most every gardener every spring. It 
is nothing new. But what will be new 
to many of us will be to sustain that 
efifort and see through that resolve to 
a satisfactory conclusion. 
It is necessary for the amateur and 
professional gardeners in America to 
keep up their interest in their gardens 
during the next three months. That 
afternoon’s tennis or golf will have to 
be put off. Your first duty to your 
country will be to see that your plants 
are in a healthy condition and that they 
are kept so through the hot months. 
I like the City’s bustling thrift— 
Its current swift—• 
But oh, the drift 
Of snowy silence sweetly lying— 
Softly flying—whitely dying! 
I heed the City’s golden call, 
But over all 
The din and brawl 
I hear a still voice in the gloaming 
Call me homing . . . homing . . . homing. . . 
Viola Brothers Shore. 
I T is more necessary to see the green 
things growing in these months 
than to see the flag waving. The flag 
will stay where it has always been— 
on high—so long as you earnestly per¬ 
sist in raising your bit. If you become 
a slacker at these times, it will fall be¬ 
draggled into the dust just as your 
plants will wilt and fall into the dust. 
The flag will never have stripes more 
glorious than the stripes of your per¬ 
sistence and sacrifice this summer. 
There will never be field of honor more 
ennobling than the field you raise this 
year to a bounteous harvest. 
