26 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 



of coffee, 144,000,000 pounds of sugar, 288,000,000 

 pounds of bacon, 1,104,000,000 pounds of frozen beef, 

 and 1,800,000,000 pounds of flour. 



So huge are these figures that to the average person 

 they are meaningless, but that these army demands 

 constituted a terrific drain on our commercial food 

 supplies was evident to everybody. Practically all of 

 this food was food diverted from its accustomed chan- 

 nels. Not an ounce of it went to the feeding of the 

 civilian population which formerly had practically all 

 of it. At the same time, if our allies were to be saved 

 from utter collapse through hunger, and our own 

 country saved from the plight of having to carry on 

 the war single-handed and alone, it was essential that 

 greater quantities of food be sent to Europe than Amer- 

 ica had ever before exported. After the war ended, and 

 it became necessary, in some measure, to provide for 

 the population of the enemy countries, still larger de- 

 mands for food for export were to be expected. The 

 very causes that had produced these conditions had, 

 as we have seen, so stripped the farms of men that a 

 food production commensurate with the needs of the 

 situation was an impossibility. 



"Those who cultivated the soil could hardly do 

 more than they were doing," said Luther Burbank, a 

 member of the National War Garden Commission, in 

 speaking of the matter. "It was becoming evident 

 that food, which before had been taken as a matter of 

 course, was in reality the foundation of all life, all know- 

 ledge, all progress. What could be done? It became 



