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 
