THE BEGINNING OF THE U.F.O. 55 



toward the towns and cities. The year 1914,' 

 when the war broke out, found scarcely more 

 than one man to one hundred acres of Ontario 

 farm land, a population not sufficient to handle 

 the necessary work with any degree of comfort. 

 With the progress of the War came the call for- 

 volunteers, and the young men of the farms, 

 though they were needed at home, and their 

 going often involved the further burdening of 

 already overburdened shoulders, had enlisted 

 freely. It is true that the rural districts \X 

 never got full credit for this, for the reason that 

 many of these young men enlisted from nearby 

 towns, but the fact remains that the country 

 districts responded most generously. It is also 

 to be remembered that less than six months 

 before the exemptions were cancelled, in the 

 election campaign of 1917, the farmers had been* 

 assured by the members of the Union Govern- 

 ment then seeking election, as has already been 

 pointed out, that farm help would not be con- 

 scripted, and that if any of these were taken 

 they would be honorably returned to the 

 farms. Further, only a few weeks had passed- 

 since the Minister of Agriculture of this same 

 Government had urged upon the farmers that 

 the deciding factor of the war would be food 

 production, and that their duty was to push 

 production to the limit. With all these facts 



