lOlS] EDITORIAL. 105 



and at the close of 1917 the use of cream was restricted to butter 

 making and such other purposes as the food controller might author- 

 ize. All creameries, condenseries, and other milk factories were pro- 

 hibited from acquiring or receiving any greater quantity of milk 

 than was coming to them in 1916. 



The entire wool clip of 1916 and 1917 was taken over by the govern- 

 ment, prices frsed, and holders prohibited from selling to other pur- 

 chasers. 



The regulations have gone so far as to forbid the feeding of game 

 on products suited to human and live stock feeding, and to encour- 

 age the killing of certain game and migratory birds by extending the 

 open season, the reduction of the stock of pheasar^ts, and the destruc- 

 tion of rabbits, hares, rooks, sparrows, and rats. 



An order relative to the drainage of lands, requiring ditches, drains, 

 and outlets to be kept open, was later extended to give the Board of 

 Agriculture power to regulate the flow of water in rivers and streams 

 to prevent floods and provide for the draining of adjoining lands. 



These are only a portion of the regulations prescribed, but they 

 indicate something of their scope and wide variety. They are con- 

 stantly being added to as necessity is found to require, and, as the 

 agricultural press has pointed out, " practically every product of the 

 farm is now controlled in some way or another by one or more of 

 these manj^ orders." 



Unusual and far-reaching as some of these provisions are, they are 

 not more radical than the steps taken for the encouragement and 

 assistance of agriculture. Recently various measures have been 

 adopted to relieve the farm labor situation, for while women had vol- 

 unteered for farm work in large numbers and had proved a " power- 

 ful auxiliary," and town labor and children had been pressed into 

 service, these can not be expected to fully replace men in farm work. 



Arrangements were made for temporary release of farm laborers 

 in the army, for delayed calling, and finally to practically stop re- 

 cruiting from that class. Two years ago several thousand men were 

 assigned to farm work and as many more from the home defense 

 forces, and during the past year some fifty thousand men have been 

 segregated from the army and the untrained ones given training for 

 short periods at schools throughout England and Wales. The em- 

 ployment of prisoners of war has not been generally popular with 

 English farmers, but they have been used by the government in 

 large drainage and other enterprises. 



At various times provision has been made for the temporary em- 

 ployment of army horses and mules with drivers, by farmers in the 

 vicinity of the camps; and ultimately the Board of Agriculture 

 arranged for the purchase through the army of some thirty thousand 



