Victory Gardens Handbook

Victory Gardens Handbook of the Victory Garden Committee War Services, Pennsylvania State Council of Defense. April 1944

The Victory Garden movement and its significance in our wartime economy, both as a means of releasing food to our armed forces and of improving the nutritional status of civilians can be appreciated only by those who study the statistics and translate them into homely, every-day meaning. When we hear that Americans produced eight million tons of vegetables last year in home gardens, a quantity which was one-fourth of the entire vegetable production of the nation, it can be seen readily what would have been the state of civilian nutrition if the Victory Garden had not functioned.

As a means of increasing our nation's food supply, both fresh and canned or otherwise conserved for winter use, the Victory Garden has more than justified itself. Not only have people had more food as a result of this home effort, but also they have learned lessons of food selection and preparation, of food values, of human nutrition and its dependence upon proper food selection, which would never have been taught so well in any other way. Millions of dollars of advertising by commercial firms could never have been so effective in teaching the consumer the value of vegetables in the dietary as has the wartime experience of home vegetable production. Marion Margery Scranton, April 1944