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 differentiates 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 
