146 THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 



Joseph was appointed to prepare against the lean years 

 that overtook the dwellers along the Nile. Joseph, rep- 

 resenting autocracy, took the task into his own hands. 

 Mr. Hoover, acting for democracy, asked us to do the 

 job ourselves. Both cut the Gordian knot of their per- 

 plexity in much the same way. Joseph dried the excess 

 corn and stored it in his granaries. Mr. Hoover asked 

 us to can and dry our garden surplus. In each case 

 food conservation won the day. Indeed, so close is the 

 parallel between events in Joseph's day and ours, that 

 no more accurate description of what is doing in the 

 world to-day can be found than the Scriptural recita- 

 tion of occurrences along the Nile: "The dearth was 

 in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was 

 bread. . . . And all countries came into Egypt to 

 Joseph for to buy corn." 



Even so all countries are coming to America to secure 

 wheat and meat, and particularly fats. Here occurs the 

 feature that diiferentiates present-day conditions from 

 those of Joseph's time. Joseph's customers could come 

 to him on dry land; but a mighty ocean, three thousand 

 miles wide, lies between America and her starving cus- 

 tomers. Before they can get food they must have 

 ships. Even that mighty tonnage pictured in Lloyd 

 George's phrase, "Ships, ships, and still more ships," 

 can hardly transport the food fast enough to save the 

 starving world from starvation. Dean Swift called for 

 benedictions upon the head of him who made two blades 

 of grass or two ears of corn to grow where only one 

 had grown before. To-day, he might add to his list of 



