THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 149 



applied to vegetables chiefly, only about twenty-two 

 plants being for milk-drying. 



Despite all these facts one finds practically no dried 

 vegetables for sale at retail in America, and only a lim- 

 ited amount of dried fruit. Outside of government 

 contracts there has been and is little or no market for 

 dried products. The National War Garden Commission 

 has inquired carefully into the matter, and has corre- 

 sponded with most of the commercial drying concerns 

 in the country. One and all report that, aside from 

 contracts with the War Department, they have practi- 

 cally no market for their products. 



It is highly desirable that markets for dried foods be 

 created and speedily. The food situation in the world 

 is to-day more critical than it was at any time during 

 the war. The task of feeding themselves has taxed to 

 the utmost the United States and her co-belligerents. 

 Now peace imposes upon these defenders of civilization 

 a task that is simply appalling. German submarine 

 warfare reduced to actual starvation the 180,000,000 

 people in the neutral nations of Europe. Beyond ques- 

 tion we must rescue these unfortunates from starva- 

 tion, by sharing with them. It is apparent, too, that 

 our responsibility does not end there. Austria and the 

 new nations which were formerly a part of that country 

 together with Bulgaria, Turkey, and Russia, are also 

 starving. If we are to have lasting peace in the world, 

 if we are to have stable governments and the settled 

 conditions of existence, which alone make progress 

 possible — in short, if we are to make safe that condition 



