To can or dry all fruits and vegetables that cannot be preserved in any other way.
To substitute other cereals for wheat, which can be shipped abroad.
A wheatless meal every day will drive many to appreciate the value of other grains, whose use heretofore has been largely perverted. Corn, rye, barley, and oats are not appreciated as they should be. They have been used largely in the manufacture of intoxicating drinks and for feeding animals to procure meat. It has been said that the Revolutionary War was won by men fed on hasty pudding—in other words, corn meal mush. Learn to eat bread made from corn, rye, or oats, or a mixture of these grains. Form the habit of eating these more economical breads; then continue the practice. Such breads are far superior to the ordinary denatured white bread. If a dog is fed only white bread, death will result sooner than if it is fed nothing.
The Call of the Country
Land in Europe that for centuries was used to gratify the abnormal tastes of plutocrats and the aristocracy, is now being made to produce wholesome food to meet the world's needs. In America, people are still deprived of their divine right to a simple home, because millions of acres of land are held in a similar manner.
Schools and churches should encourage the cultivation of vacant city lots. City people may thus learn the secret of intensive farming. It may give some courage to make a home on a few acres of land and to raise the food for their own tables. Every turn in a congested center calls for an outlay of means. Modern methods of living are unnatural and extravagant. In the city, every article of food costs in proportion to its distance from the base of supplies. Transportation must be added to the original cost of production; the jobber, the wholesaler, the commission merchant, the retailer, the delivery man, and the baker must all have their profits.
Get out of the cities; get onto the land! Why not preach this part of the gospel? Help people to understand that the unnatural appetites and the desires for artificial food are penalties paid very largely by those who seek to maintain themselves by their wits. One mighty step has been taken toward the prevention of waste and in economy's favor when men learn to earn their bread in the sweat of their face while tilling the soil.
Late hours, business worry, nerve-wrecking noises, the hurry, the wear and tear of living in a crowd, the dust and filth of the city air, the struggle of competition,—these would be replaced by purer, saner surroundings if parents settled in some country place where children are born with a heritage of fresh air, grassy playgrounds, wholesome daily tasks in the house and out of doors, and are fed in a simple manner befitting their surroundings. But do not transfer the evils of the city to some country site. Not much need to urge "the gospel of the clean plate" to the healthy country child! A good appetite is the best seasoning for plain food.