Effects of the War U 



During the war the exports of vegetable seeds and of some 

 field seeds, which in the past have been imported in larger 

 quantities than they have been exported, in the main greatly 

 exceeded the exports before the war, despite the fact that 

 many restrictions had to be placed on seed exports to con- 

 serve ocean tonnage, to insure a sufficient supply of seed at 

 home, and to guard against shipments billed to neutral 

 countries but ultimately meant for enemy countries. Un- 

 fortunately. export figures for field and vegetable seeck are 

 not available except somewhat incomplete figures for the 

 fiscal years ending July 1, 1917 and 1918. The exports of 

 vegetable seeds for these two fiscal years compared with the 

 anticipated exports for the fiscal year ending July 1, 1919, 

 as reported to the United States Bureau of Markets, by the 

 largest seed dealers indicate that a marked increase in the 

 exports of vegetable seeds has taken place during the war, 

 even at a time when our own domestic demand was greater 

 than ever before. Table 2 shows where the greatest gains 

 in vegetable seed exports were made. 



DOMESTIC DEMANDS FOR SEED. 



The war has had a far-reaching effect upon the domestic 

 demand for vegetable seed and certain kinds of field seed. 

 By means of the publicity given by the various agencies of 

 the Government and by seedsmen and periodicals to war 

 gardens, a greater demand for vegetable seed arose than was 

 ever before experienced. People in cities who had never 

 planted gardens were influenced to " do their bit " toward 

 solving the food problem by making gardens. While it is 

 true that in some localities the sales of seed to market gar- 

 deners decreased, this was more than offset by the small sales 

 to the vastly increased number of amateur gardeners. 



In order to help feed the allies, the farmers of this coun- 

 try, spurred on by record prices, patriotically responded to 

 the appeal for more food crops by planting greater acreages 

 of wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley, etc., and, while conditions 

 were not always favorable, they succeeded in surpassing the 

 record production of many of these crops. Increased acre- 

 age, of course, meant an increased demand for seeds with 

 whirli to plant these crops, and a higher percentage of the 



