The name of the United States School Garden Army was adopted in March, 1918. The work of the organization is an expansion of work undertaken by the Bureau of Education in 1914. The scale upon which it was done was limited by the finances that could be secured for it. The acute demand for food production growing out of the war conditions made expansion possible. Commissioner of Education P. P. Claxton sent a letter to Honorable Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior. He stated that for several years the Bureau of Education has been developing slowly, with a small appropriation, a plan of school-directed home gardening in cities, towns, villages, and suburban communities which has proved so effective, both for education and for food production, that he feels it to be almost imperative that it be put into operation at once in all parts of the country as one means of meeting the food emergency which now exists and will probably continue to exist for two or three years at least. The plan consists in enlisting boys and girls between the ages of 9 or 10 and 14 or 15 in systematic garden work for food production on such plats of ground as can be bad for this purpose near their homes, on back yards, side yards, and vacant lots and then providing teacher-directors for them at the rate of one teacher-director for each group of from 100 to 150 garden workers. Parents and older brothers and sisters are induced to cooperate with the children whenever this is possible. Following this letter, and upon the request of Secretary Lane, President Wilson appropriated $50,000 from the National Security and Defense Fund to promote school and school-supervised home gardening among the school children of America residing in cities, towns, and villages. Up to this time the field had been practically untouched by any governmental agency. In a few cities throughout the country, garden work had been undertaken by the schools and by civic organizations, but these instances were few in number. [Best copy available has been provided.]