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Show AMERICA INACTION p A ARMY VICTORY GARDENS OVERSEAS In geometrically perfect garden plots behind barracks in the United States, in tenderly nurtured artificial artifi-cial cases on desert islands which exist only as army post office numbers num-bers and in the British Isles where a large but undisclosed number of American soldiers are stationed, the army has cultivated its own Victory gardens with the serious purpose of supplying the soldiers with food that they might not otherwise get. In the first comprehensive report on army gardening activities in England, Eng-land, Maj. Gen. E. B. Gregory, the quartermaster general, discloses that under, the Joint British-American Agricultural program, all suitable suit-able land in posts, camps and stations, sta-tions, British as well as American, in the British Isles, has been taken under cultivation for the production of fresh vegetables for consumption by British and American troops. The garden produce is used by whichever which-ever needs it most and neither is fussy about it. Because for every pound oi rood which can be produced pro-duced in England, it means one less pound of food that must be shipped there, and whether it is eaten by British or American soldiers is not of great importance. What is important im-portant is saving space on ships for the men and guns and tanks necessary neces-sary to win the war. Brig. Gen. Robert A. Littlejohn, chief ' quartermaster for the European Euro-pean theater of operations, reports that upwards of 14,000 acres are now under cultivation and that another an-other 1,000 acres probably will be put to gardens by the end of the year. What do they raise In these gardens? gar-dens? Pretty much the same things that private American Victory gardeners gar-deners raise except for hay and grain crops which will be utilized by dairymen to effect the grassland the dairymen have been deprived of, a sort of indirect contribution to the soldiers' diet. Altogether, the return re-turn from the gardening is expected to be about 25,000 tons of potatoes and 134,000 tons of vegetables and root crops, together with about 7,000 tons of hay and grain. In the precise language of an official of-ficial military letter. General Littlejohn Little-john says: "Your particular attention Is directed di-rected to the fact that there are frequent changes between British and American occupancy of camps, posts and stations, including air fields. For this reason it is impossible impos-sible to predict exactly what proportion pro-portion of the work will be done by British or American troops, or what proportion of the produce will be consumed by either. However, it is felt our mission is being accomplished accom-plished for the reason that the joint program is producing foodstuffs that would otherwise have to be shipped to this country for the consumption of one army or the other. In addition, addi-tion, it should be borne in mind that the more self-supporting our armies are, the more food will be left for civilian consumption, both in the United States and in this country." Released by Western Newspaper Union. |