80 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Sept.y. 



The farmer is more than a producer of food. The farming 

 people comprise a great group in our civic life, with their own 

 way of living, their own organizations, to a certain extent 

 their own institutions or at least their own point of view on 

 institutions. The whole relation of the farmer to the body 

 politic is to be considered, not merely his technical or occu- 

 pational relation as a producer of supplies. We will never 

 do him justice if we think of him only as a supplier of the 

 needs of other people. 



Yet at the present moment the food relation is the most 

 serious one confronting the farming occupation. Never has 

 a population been presented with such a staggering food 

 problem as now confronts the peoples of North America. We 

 are to miaintain extensive armies on foreign soil, provide for 

 vast losses by land and l)y sea, and to contribute an impor- 

 tant part of the support of millions of allied and neutral 

 peoples. This obligation calls for the best national en- 

 deavor in the interest of the farmer, and for the organization 

 of food-producing into the emergency plans of the nation as 

 an integral part of the war movement. Alerely fixing prices. 

 or extending scientific knowledge, or enlarging the educa- 

 tional forces, will not accomplish the required result. Alany 

 stimuli and regulations may be applied to the food situation,, 

 of wdiich four may 1)e mentioned here : 



(1) W^e are to save the food. So vast is our territory in 

 proportion to our pooulation and so abundant ha^'e ])een our 

 resources, that we have never thought to organize our econ- 

 omy in the use of food. In fact, we have not ap'^lied good 

 judgment in our eating and our culinary habits. The prob- 

 lem now before us is not only to save food 1)y eliminating 

 waste, but also to reorganize household activities and our 

 desires in such a way as will make for simplicity and for the 

 proper use of the essentials. Our system, of life should be 

 frugal. We are little more than in sight of the requirements 

 that we shall prol^ably face before the war is over, if the war 

 lasts as long as now predicted. 



(2) We must save labor as well as food. W^iole indus- 

 tries which make for indulgences and frivolities and for un- 

 essential commodities, will need to be stayed, and possibly 



