WAR GARDENS OF UNITED STATES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 167, 12 July 1918, Page 7

WAR GARDENS OF UNITED STATES.

TO "SOW SEJ3t>® OF VICTOR Y."

AN OFFICIAL BULLETIN.

Washington:—"All A.nny with hoes" is the best Way to describe that host of American soldiers of the soil who in all parts of the United States are growing food in "war gardens" to help win the war. As a result of the appeal which has been made to the people of the United States, back yards and vacant lots in cities, towns/ and villages all over the country are being cultivated, and the city farmer is raising his food close to the kitchen door. "Every Garden a (Munition Plant" is the slogan which the 'Notional War Garden Commission of Washington, D.C., has sent ringing throughout the country, and reports received by the commission indicate that considerably more than 7,000,000 home gardens have been planted this year in the effort of America to help feed her Allies; to save wheat and other staple foodstuffs which can be shipped abroad, and to substitute home-grown vegetables for other food products. This patriotic appeal, the call to Americans to help through war gardening to feed her soldiers and the Allies, has been the great impelling motive of the home food production movement. The constantly growing demand for food, with the increase of prices, has been another important factor, although in reality not the one which led most of the gardeners to take up the work. Many organisations have co-operated with the 'National War Garden Commission in the national campaign which aroused the people to the vital need' of Chambers of Commerce and local trade bodies gave it their support. Women's clubs and committees of the national and State councils of defence entered actively into the spirit of tho movement. Large corporations and manufacturing concerns, banks and business houses, called attention to the great service which individuals could j-ender their country by cultivating a home garden. 'the Pennsylvania Railroad, the largest railroad corporation in the world, distributed among its employees thousands of copies of the commission's book on war vegetable gardening, and furnished 1 them with land along the lines which was not needed for railway purposes. Hundreds of thousands of these* books were given out by banks to their patrons, and schools, libraries, clubs and newspapers all over the country aided in the distribution.

Large' manufacturing companies, like the General Electric, the United States Steel Company, the American Rolling •Mill. Company, the Oliver Chilled Plow Company, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, the Carnegie Steel Company, the Inspiration Copper Consolidated Company, and mauy others, encouraged and aided their employees to plant gardens. The companies provided land, which was ploughed and prepared for the men free of charge, each worker being given a small individual plot. Fertilisers and seed as a rule were bought in large quantities, and sold to the men at cost, they being allowed to pay for it in easy instalments. The benefit of this is" fourfold :—l. It is helping to win the war. 2. It is aiding tine individual. 3. It is benefiting the company. 4. It is adding to the material wealth and the social uplift of the community in which it is carried on In this connection the Daylight Sa-v----ing law which is in effect in the United States this summer, and for which the commission carried 1 on a campaign, is proving of untold value to the home gardener. One of the great argument? in favour of the measure which had much to do with its passage was the ! benefit it would give to the city farmers. The commission pointed out that it ■would add more than 300,000 years of actual working time to the 7,000,000 war gardeners of the country and increase by many millions of dollars the amount of food grown. A powerful force in stirring the American people to the patriotic duty of war gardening was. the slogans which tne commission used in its campaign. These were placed on its posters, and employed in the press material and other literature which were sent out. Some were as follows:—"Every Garden a Munition Plant;" "Food F. 0.8. the Kitchen Door;" "Food Must Follow the Flao-;" "Plan to Plant and Win the War;" "Keep the Home Soil Turning,'* a clever paraphrase on the title of the song, "Keep the Home Fires Burning;" "Let There Be No 'Slacker Land';" "Speed Up and Spade Up; "The Hoe is the Machine Gun of the Garden;" "Get Into the Garden Trenches ;" " "Spade for Your Life and Lib; erty;" "Tune Up the Spading Fork; t "Can Vegetables and Can the Kaiser. One of the very handsome 'posters beine used this year is entitled, bow the Seeds of Victory." It represents the figure of America clad m a dress of redf white and blue, and wearing the red' cap of Liberty, walking across a field scattering .seed- .V***™*™.™ the line "Every . Garden a 0 " Plant." It is the work of James Montgomery Flagg, .■other poster is by J. Paul \eire es, - Belgian soldier artist. It shows the head of the Kaiser in a .veMtabte £»,. labelled "Monarch Brand Unsweete.iS? and by its title calls on the w,o rardoner to "Our Vegetables and G.x.i ft^ a SoS-V f^ d sion, whose president as Mi Ui.u c. Lathrop Pack {also P/ esl J»*f fn-' American Forestry Association), in St following. Imminent persons Mr Luther Burbank, f Dr U.S. Commissioner of Education_, wl Charles "W. Eliot, Harvard Um%eisit> Dr Irving Fisher, Yale University; Mi mond Mr tlviai Harmon, Mr Myron T HerTck, former American . Ambasf d - t0 inson Sherman, of the General ledei and director of the work.