The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-02-02

EGteE E0SOw some areas Cue farmers are the largest consumers of store foods, consuming more can- ned goods than city folks. So, the Department of Agriculture's cam paign to get a garden dug on every farm is what you might call revolu- tionary. Some farms do not pro- duce as much as three-fourths of all the meats, eggs, milk, vegetables and other groceries consumed on the place. Therefore, the experts figure if they can raise the national farm garden fielding average to the point where farmers produce three. fourths of all the food farm families consume, that will be relieveing the tightness of the national food situa- tion considerably.
 As for the 12 million town and city gardens-roughly three out of every eight urban dwellerS will be expected to raise a bean, q tomato, radish and several calouses-- there aren't any definite goals for quantity. Anything is supposed to be help. The average adult puts away about a ton of groceries a year That's a little over five pounds a day which seems high but is Q statistic nevertheless. If the average urban garden plot yielded IS pounds of vegetables for IS weeks, that would be a harvest of 225 pounds, or be. tween 3 and 1 per cent of the three- person family's food consumption. It would also be @ miracle.
 SPECIFIC PUZZLERS
 Getting down to the specific prob. lems of the Victory gardener, he will have his troubles. Implements, for example. The hardware stores will not offer as wide @ variety of tools as heretofore. War Production Board has cracked down on the manufacturers of garden tools, and has issued an order, L-57, which reduces the number of forks, rakes and hoes from the former 8S6 mo- dels to mere l68 in order to con- serve steel and good ash handles.
 But don't let that worry you. All the average gardener needs is three tools-four If you include the bottle of liniment-oe spade or fork, one rake, one hoe. If these are labeled with the catch line of Victory tools for Victory gardeners" = that is, If they are manufactured after April 8. l943, they will be sold in Grades A, B and o, the first being the best.
 Department of Agriculture gar- dening experts say anyone can man manage @ Victory garden with the three clubs aforementioned. Golfers giving up golf for gardening may find themselves @ little handi- capped If they have been used to having some poor knock-kneed and undernourished boy tote their hod- full of gold hardware, but in garden ing, unless you are a Burbank, you do not need No. iron for ap- preaching green tomato, nor a chrome e-headed butter for putting the pea from pod to pot:
 THERE'LL BE SEEDS
 Seed. There seems to be plenty, even counting those that won't come up, though seeds formerly imported have been cut of. Beet, onion and carrot seed are the scarcest.
 Fertilizers. Your Victory garden, spaded with Victory tools. will be fertilized with a Victory fertilizer It won't be as good a fertiSiler as you have been used to, for the de- mand for more fertilizer for more acreage and the demand for more chemicals for other war uses makes 1t necessary to spread fertllizing agents, nitrogen, phoSphoric acid and potash. The new fertilizer will be 3-S-7 per cent of those chem- icals in that order, in place of the ideal 5-10-5 you used to use. Any one using fertilizer on ornamental paintings or golf courses Is sabo- tagging the war effort.
 Insecticides. Again there are shortages. but they're not serious Base of most anti-bug juices is ar- senic, now needed for poison gas Rotenole root from South America and pyrethrum flowers from Japan are out becouse of the shipping sit- uation.
 Now is the time for all good gar- deners to come to the aid of theii