SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
may have produced some food riots and other disturbances; but when 
a nation is fighting for its existence, food statistics, even though as 
accurate as the German ones are conceded to be, will be a poor guide 
as to what might happen. In addition to the successful food rationing 
of the nation, and the seizure of all food supplies in captured. coun- 
tries (¢.g., Roumania), the successful increase in the production of 
potatoes, the cultivation of much of the agricultural land that they 
gained, and the judicious killing of some of their stock (e.g., pigs) 
after inquiry into the food that they required, in comparison with what 
they returned, must all be taken into consideration as deciding factors 
in maintaining the nation’s food supply. ‘The war commenced when 
the harvest of Central Europe had been garnered, and ample food 
supplies for at least a year were thus available. ‘With the Allies food 
was also ample, but 1915 opened badly, as the Russian supplies were 
cut off in the first few months. The Allies began to realize that their 
own food supplies were likely to become a serious problem, and a great 
campaign was commenced, especially by Great Britain, to encourage 
greater production throughout the whole British Empire. The United 
States also advocated increased food production. In England many 
thousands of acres of pasture lands were put under food crops in the 
later period of the war. 
Australia made a great effort in the year 1915-16, but since then 
drought has been a serious hindrance, and the average produétion has 
steadily fallen back to the old figure. In England and America pro- 
duction has steadily increased. In fact, after 1915-16, when the wheat 
area of the world was extended by more than 18,000,000 acres, the 
food problem became one of transport rather than one of quantity. 
__In addition to the obvious method of increasing the area under 
cultivation or also of changing the nature of the area, e.g.,. replacing 
grass land by wheat or potatoes, and: fibre crops by food crops, there 
are other methods which can be applied to the cultivation of existing 
areas, with the prospect of increasing production, without the addi- 
tional cost of the preparation and cultivation of the added area. These 
include such. methods as introducing improved varieties, and especially 
those resistant to disease; better seed selection and treatment; better 
cultivation, including rotations and manures (chemical fertilizers, 
cover crops, and animal manure); the reduction of loss by the better 
investigation and control of fungous, insect, and other diseases. The 
last method has been taken up, to some extent, in England, where an 
Imperial Bureau of Mycology has been formed; but it has remained 
for America to grapple seriously with the problem. There was already 
in existence the American Phytopathological Society, an influential 
body comprising the leading phytopathologists throughout the United 
States and Canada. At their ninth annual meeting on 1st January, 
1918, this society created the War Emergency Board of American 
Plant Pathologists, which was “charged with the responsibility of 
stimulating and accelerating phytopathological work to the end that 
in this present world crisis the reduction of crop losses from disease 
should be made most effective as a factor in the increase of our food 
supply.” It had to promote the co-operation of all the workers and to 
co-ordinate all the work undertaken in their efforts towards speedy 
400 
