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<text>
<title>
(1940s) 18,000,000 Gardens
</title>
<history>Time-The Weekly Magazine-1940s Highlights</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
TIME Magazine
February 8, 1943
18,000,000 Gardens
</hdr>
<body>
<p> For millions of city gardeners, this was the best time of
year. They sent the children to bed early, switched off the
radio, plugged the telephone bell and settled down for an
evening with their dreams. They opened the new seed catalogues
with trembling fingers, drank in the intoxicating colors of beet
and carrot, rolled the poetry over on their tongues. While
winter winds whistled outside, they luxuriated in a gentle world
where all tomatoes grow to unblemished perfection, where eight-
inch cucumbers are midgets, where every brussels sprout is a
sonnet and bugs are never seen.
</p>
<p> The catalogue writers did not let them down. W. Atlee
Burpee Co. had an Improved Super Snowball Cauliflower, a Tender
Pod Bush Bean that would make a mummy drool: "...surpasses
all others in quality, tenderness, succulence and flavor...The pods are 4 1/2 to 5 inches long, thick, round in cross
section, smooth, deep dark green in color, curving slightly,
with long and distinctively curved tips..." Peter Henderson
& Co. had a Coreless Carrot whose "beautiful appearance alone
wins favor for it, wherever grown...Its coreless, rich red-
orange flesh possesses a sweet, melting tenderness that appeals
even to those who otherwise are not fond of carrots..."
</p>
<p> A New York Times book reviewer, sobersided John
Chamberlain, used a full column one morning to review the
catalogues--in rollicking verse. In Boston's ultra-respectable
College Club, women flocked to a series of morning lectures on
vegetable gardening. In Minneapolis, with temperatures ranging
to 31 below zero, the Star-Journal's gardening editor was booked
solid for lectures. In Dallas, the Robin Road Cooperative
Association (ten determined couples who gave each other garden
tools for Christmas) got off to an early start digging in its
borrowed acre--the women wearing the most beautiful slacks
ever seen in a vegetable patch.
</p>
<p> Wickard's Blessing. This year Victory gardens have the
Agriculture Department's blessing: Secretary Claude Wickard
wants 12,000,000 in cities, 6,000,000 more in farms. The
Department has arranged for the production of a special Victory
Garden Fertilizer (three parts nitrogen, eight parts phosphorus,
seven parts potash--this skimps the usual nitrogen proportion,
adds a bit to the potash as compared to the commercial
fertilizers of peacetime. Nitrogen goes into explosives.), and
is ready with all kinds of advice and pamphlets. Seed companies
have keyed their advertising to Agriculture's campaign. From
almost any catalogue, neophyte gardeners can choose a victory
garden combination ($1 and up) with full instructions how, when
and where to plant it. With a little luck and work, they will
have fresh vegetables on their tables all summer. With a normal
dose of inexperience, they will also waste a lot of seed and
fertilizer.
</p>
<p> If Claude Wickard gets his 18,000,000 Victory gardens, food
rationing will have much less sting this summer. The Agriculture
Department estimates that every city garden will produce at
least $10 worth of vegetables, every farm garden at least $50.
At these figures, Victory gardens should yield a $420,000,000
crop.
</p>
<p> One thing the Agriculture Department wants to avoid is the
gardener whose January enthusiasm melts under a July sun. Thus
the Department emphasizes that gardening is work as well as fun,
requires sound planning as well as patriotism. Chief points for
amateur gardeners to remember: 1) be sure the ground is good (if
weeds grew there in profusion last year, vegetables probably
will this year); 2) avoid starting the garden too early (wait
until the soil is crumbly after the spring thaws); 3) use seeds
sparingly; 4) keep after weeds and bugs; 5) be sure that the
garden is not out of reach of a hose for dry spells; 6) keep the
ground busy by planting late crops after the early ones have
ripened; 7) concentrate on easily grown plants; leaf lettuce,
greens, endive, cabbage, rutabagas, yellow squash, carrots,
tomatoes, beans, beets.
</p>
<p> For all Claude Wickard's precautions, 1943's Victory
gardens will produce many a laugh for professional farmers. One
Dallas newsman bought a pound of turnip seed (enough for an
acre) for his modest back yard. Seed companies have received
scores of inquiries for coffee seed, got one request for
succotash seed.
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>