THE FOOD SUPPLY OF OUR ALLIES 



633 



to the hereditary traditions of the agri- 

 cultural connnunity where individual 

 profit had been supreme and the wel- 

 fare of the state of secondary impor- 

 tance. In time of war. howev(>r, the 

 safety of the state rises above the per- 

 sonal profits of an individual. It was 

 realized that a decrease in llic number 

 of animals maintained would decrease 

 tlic amount of fertilizer for use upon 

 the soil, and so it was proposed to em- 

 ploy artificial fertilizers, such as am- 

 monium sulphate, for the renewal of 

 the soil. Professor Wood showed that 

 the relation between the number of 

 manure-producing animals and the size 

 of the crops Avas exaggerated in the 

 minds of the farmers. 



The arrangement was such that the 

 home-grown meat was divided among 

 the civilian population, and the army 

 and navy were provided by importa- 

 tions from the United States and the 

 Argentine. 



In Ma}', however, the importations 

 of American pork were on so large a 

 scale that it could be purchased without 

 giving up one of those precious meat 

 coupons which four times weekly al- 

 lowed an individual to purchase an 

 amount of meat not exceeding five 

 ounces, including bone. 



The English army ration was a 

 pound of meat and four ounces of 

 bacon daily. Our own army ration of 

 meat, having descended from British 

 custom, was established by George 

 Washington in 1792 at one pound of 

 meat per day. The French army re- 

 ceives two thirds of this amount or 

 300 grams daily. The Italians have 

 heretofore received less than this, but 

 having been brigaded with French and 

 English troops, they have acquired a 

 taste for meat. 



Major Ewing, who had charge of 

 the nutrition of the Canadian troops 

 quartered in England, gave a talk be- 

 fore the Royal Society Food Committee 

 one day last winter and described how, 

 in former vears, he had cared for the 



provisioning of various gangs of men 

 who were pushing a branch railroad 

 from the Canadian Pacific Railroad up 

 a valley in the Canadian Rockies. The 

 Italians of the party lived more eco- 

 nomically than the men of other 

 nationalities and refused to buy meat. 

 Tlieir labor became poor and the situa- 

 tion was most unsatisfactory. Finally 

 the company ordered that each man must 

 have deducted from his wages at least 

 $15 a month for food whether he ate it 

 or not. This resulted in the Italians eat- 

 ing meat and in a great improvement 

 of their working capacity. This experi- 

 ment, however, does not show whether 

 the benefit was derived from the meat 

 itself or from the fat present in the 

 meat. 



Some American workmen leave a 

 standing order with the butcher for 

 a pound of meat a day or even two 

 pounds. Wood in England has shown 

 that it takes five times the quantity of 

 fodder to produce a pound of dry hu- 

 man food in the form of steer-beef 

 than it takes to produce an equal value 

 in terms of milk, veal, and cow meat. 

 The moral of this is that eating beef 

 in large quantities is a distinct social 

 loss to the community. The fodder 

 used to produce steer-beef would pro- 

 duce a fivefold food value if it were 

 used in dairy farming. The English 

 have attempted to divert their reduced 

 fodder supply so that it shall produce 

 a maximum amount of human food. 



The reduced meat dietary had no 

 evil effect upon the British population 

 last winter, and it is extremely doubt- 

 ful whether the large quantities of 

 meat prescril)cd for soldiers is in any 

 way necessary. Colonel Murlin has 

 found that when the choice is left to 

 the men themselves, the troops in our 

 home camps take less than three quar- 

 ters of a pound of meat a day, or not 

 far from the ration of the French 

 soldiers, whose physical efficiency is 

 unquestioned. With so many other 

 precedents in the melting pot, it may 



