NOTICES REI^ATING TO AGRICULTURAX ECONOMY IN GENERAL II 9 



habitants. One of them has distributed 300 gardens, of 300 square metres (i) 

 each, to as many necessitous famihes. 



The movement is spreading to the large provincial towns. Some of 

 them have resumed on a far larger scale the culture which they undertook 

 in 1916 at the expense of the municipality, and they have without excep- 

 tion obtained the best results. 



Further by the despatches of 30 December 1916 and 19 January 1917 

 the ]\Iinister of War decreed that a certain number of mobilized men should 

 in each district be commissioned for three months in the year to provoke 

 and encourage the formation and development of military vegetable gar- 

 dens. 



These mobilized men went through a course at the ^Ministry of Agri- 

 culture which ended on 4 February 1917, and then departed to their dis- 

 tricts where most of them at once began work. 



Since the despatches mentioned were variously interpreted, in some dis- 

 tricts the minister specified their intention as follows : 



i) F)ach of the men concerned, except such as have been noted as un- 

 suitable by the Ministry of Agriculture and therefore replaced, should re- 

 ceive as soon as he reaches his district, from the general commanding it, 

 an order allowing him to go and come freely within its limits. The three 

 months for which he is comnu'ssioned start on the da}- on which this order is 

 remitted to him. 



2) From the date on which this order is remitted to him the lecturer 

 is under the orders only of the general or generals to whose subdivisions he 

 has been assigned, is in direct correspondence with them, and addresses 

 his reports to them directly. 



3) For the time for which he is commissioned the lecturer nmst not 

 be expected to render other service. 



4) In every place lectures must be delivered to the chiefs of united 

 units and not to each unit separately, and must precede the visits to the 

 varioiis military formations. 



5) With a view to these visits a lecturer is supplied without delay 

 with a complete list of the military units, detachments and establishments 

 within the district assigned to him. 



In virtue of a decision of the Minister of War on 18 February 1917 the 

 head of the Department ot Civil and IMilitary Vegetable Gardens at the 

 Ministry of Agriculture has been entrusted with the local control of the exe- 

 cution of instructions a])plicable to military vegetable gardens, the verifi- 

 cation of results obtained, and the superintendence of the military lectu- 

 rers commissioned for the relevant work of propaganda. 



(i) I square metre = 10.764 square feet. 



