THE WAR GARDEN VICTORIOUS 
5 
This fact, however, was not patent immediately. 
At least it was glimpsed only by those of keen pene- 
tration. In every country there were some accumulated 
stores. These served to delay the approach of actual 
hunger. Then came the year, 1916, which was, agri- 
culturally, the most disastrous year the world has 
known, in recent times. Crops failed everywhere. Eu- 
ropean production decreased terribly. Our own fell 
off by hundreds of millions of bushels. What was left 
of accumulated surpluses was eaten up. The great 
drain on our food resources wiped out our surpluses 
also, for, in effect at least, we had pooled our food 
resources with our fellows in Europe. Thus both 
Europe and America found themselves living a hand- 
to-mouth existence. 
It was barely an existence, at that — at least for our 
allies in Europe. So terrible had the food shortage 
there become that the daily rations had been cut to the 
minimum that would sustain life and strength. The 
peasant population of continental Europe, which means 
a large part of the people, lives principally upon wheat 
in one form or another. In France bread is literally 
the staff of life, normally constituting 52 per cent, of 
the Frenchmans food. Yet the French bread ration 
was successively lowered until at one time it reached 
seven ounces a day per capita. In Italy, the sale of 
macaroni was entirely prohibited in certain districts, 
and the bread ration was cut to eight ounces a day. 
Hard-working laborers were allowed fifteen ounces. 
In both of these countries even the bread ration of the 
