There have been wholesome experiments in community canning in Lakewood, and in Bernards Township, New Jersey. In the latter in each school was an experienced teacher to supervise the work of preserving performed by high-school girls of the neighborhood, the fruits and vegetables being sold by the townspeople to the school or brought by them to be conserved by coöperative canning for their own use in the future. This service of the girls was on an equality with that of the boys who belonged to the agricultural army. In Kansas City the surplus garden products canned by schoolgirls were used for the school lunches.
England's schools now have "open days" on which parents may be admitted to receive the instruction given to the children in the economical cooking of the food which the food controller's instructions show is likely to be available for general consumption; also (quoting from a letter from Sir Robert Blair of the London County Council, May 30, 1917) the responsible mistresses of the evening schools and the domestic-economy staff employed in these schools are organizing traveling kitchens in 29 boroughs within the county. These traveling kitchens form practically a demonstration set of apparatus by which the simplest forms of cookery can be shown to 100 or 200 people. The demonstrations are well attended, and the people in small villages thus have the opportunity of those in larger settlements to learn from experts methods of making palatable the food products less well understood.
It may be urged that community canning has its place outside cities of the first class. New York City certainly cannot be held to be the center of an agricultural district, and yet valuable experiments in food conservation are being made there. One is concerned primarily with the prevention of waste. Of the thousands of pounds of perishable vegetables and fruit which are brought each day to the produce piers, much is prohibited from being sold to retailers because of injuries received in transportation. When more than 20 per cent has been injured, it has not paid wholesalers to salvage the uninjured portion. As a result, a ruinous quantity of produce has gone to waste, often being dumped in the harbor for want of better disposal. The loss as estimated by the board of health has been 225,000 pounds a week.