doing they will increase the surplus of food available for our own Army and for the export to the Allies. To provide adequate supplies for the coming year is of absolutely vital importance to the conduct of the war, and without a very conscientious elimination of waste and very strict economy in our food consumption we can not hope to fulfill this primary duty.

I trust, therefore, that the women of the country will not only respond to your appeal and accept the pledge to the food administration which you are proposing, but that all men also who are engaged in the personal distribution of foods will cooperate with the same earnestness and in the same spirit. I give you full authority to undertake any steps necessary for the proper organization and stimulation of their efforts.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF FOOD SUPPLIES IN GERMANY.

FURTHER REDUCTION OF POTATO RATION.

According to a cable by the Associated Press, dated May 19, 1917,1 the potato situation in Germany apparently is growing steadily worse, although the weather no longer furnishes an excuse for the scanty shipments. Following the example of its sister city Altona, Hamburg has reduced the weekly ration to 24 ounces, substituting an allowance of 640 grams (1.41 pounds) of bread for the rest of the promised 5 pounds of potatoes. To meet the dissatisfaction. which this state of affairs produced the Government has authorized grocers to sell all their remaining stocks of canned vegetables.

The Berlin potato ration is being maintained, although with great difficulty, because of the moral effect of reducing at the capital the allowance promised definitely after the April strike. In a remarkably worded official appeal the people of Berlin are implored to remember that the eyes of the world are upon them; they are admonished to cease complaining and to recognize how much better conditions are in Berlin than in the war-ravaged enemy lands of the British Isles which, the appeal states, are headed toward actual starvation.

Simultaneously there were published official arrangements for a race between time and famine, which show how perilously scant is the margin of safety under the most favorable conditions between the moment when the present stock is exhausted and the time in which flour will be available. These plans provide for selection of the region where the crops will ripen first under climatic conditions, to which reapers, thrashing machines, and military workers will be sent. All arrangements have been made for rushing this grain to the mills.

LARGE SUPPLY OF FISH."

Germany is at the present time rejoicing in an oversupply of fish, owing to unusually large catches in the waters of the Baltic Sea and to

1 The Evening Star. Washington. D. C., May 19, 1917.

heavy imports. The population is being implored by the newspapers to use more fish, which is now obtainable without a card and is selling below the legal maximum price. The army too is oversupplied with fish, and the smoking establishments have more on hand than they can preserve. Fish dealers in Denmark have been notified to limit or discontinue temporarily shipments of fish.

PROTEST OF BAVARIAN FARMERS AGAINST THE MISMANAGEMENT OF THE FOOD PROGRAM.1

The Bavarian Christian Farmers' Association held an important meeting at Regensburg recently to protest against the mismanagement of the food supply, especially in the matter of meat. The meeting was attended by 20 members of the Reichstag and the Diet. The food dictator, Von Batocki, was violently attacked and was also held to be responsible for the scarcity of beer. It was stated that where the general administration had interfered things were at their worst. The farmers insist that the price of meat must be raised, as, 'in contract to the great industrial establishments, the farmers making no profits.

CONFERENCE IN PRUSSIA ON FOOD SUPPLY.

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It is officially stated in the Berlin press that at a conference in the Prussian House of Lords at which members of the various Government departments were present it was decided that there was complete assurance of a food supply sufficient to enable the country to hold out for the remainder of the crop year. The conference was held under the presidency of the minister of the interior. All problems connected with the matter of public feeding were thoroughly discussed. The conferees formulated regulations for the crop year 1917-18 and considered all possibilities of food distribution. Their conclusions were reached after a complete survey of existing conditions.

COMPULSORY FARM LABOR.3

The general in command of the Second Army Corps, whose headquarters are in Stettin, has proclaimed that soldiers' wives in receipt of war relief must do at least half a day's work on the land every day, provided they are physically able to do so and their general circumstances permit it. In the event of their refusal the district presidents (Landräte) are to decide as to whether the continuance of their maintenance grant is necessary, and if a serious reminder of their duty remains without effect the grant made them for the maintenance of their family is to be wholly or partially withdrawn. The general has also appealed to the district presidents to prevail upon foremen,

1 The Sunday Star, Washington, D. C., June 2, 1917.

2 New York Post. June 6, 1917.

3 Christian Science Monitor, Boston, May 11, 22, 31, 1917.

district commissioners, and so on, to see that no men and women suitable for agricultural labor by reason of their strength and their abilities evade such work. Cases of public resistance, he announces, are to be brought to his notice.

The chief commander of the Marches has published a decree with regard to the work on the land and the forests throughout Brandenburg. The men and women already engaged in such work are forbidden to enter any other employment without the written consent of a magistrate, while those people in rural districts who have so far not engaged in work of any kind must also take up no other work than that on the land or in the forests unless they obtain written permission to do so, and this permission will be given only when the work desired is not considered prejudicial to the promotion of agricultural production.

The decree further renders it compulsory for all men and women. to undertake agricultural work at the usual rate of payment in their home or a neighboring district if called upon to do so and if the matter can be arranged without any great detriment to their private affairs. The provision applies to work on Sundays as well as on week days. The necessary summonses are to be issued in every case by a magistrate, and only in the event of imperative necessity, such as may arise in connection with the sowing or reaping of crops, etc. Failure to comply with the decree will be punishable by imprisonment for one year, while minor offenses may incur arrest or a fine of 1,500 marks ($357).

The Bavarian War Office has published a decree to the effect that people not liable to auxiliary service must not be engaged by industrial concerns nor as domestic servants unless they have worked on the land for six weeks during the preceding 12 months. Similarly, employees already engaged who have not fulfilled these conditions are to be dismissed. The order is stated to be chiefly directed against country girls engaged in domestic service in the towns.

PRUSSIAN CHILDREN SENT TO FARMS.1

The German newspapers devote much space to a description of the departure of nearly 1,000 children from Berlin to the villages and farmhouses of East Prussia. The children will be put as far as possible on light farm work while they are regaining health and strength under the stimulation of more plentiful farm food. Committees which have been collecting funds for some time have made arrangements with country people who are willing to take city children for periods varying from one to four months. School

authorities repeatedly have asserted that undernutrition is seriously interfering with the work in the schools, and statistics gathered by medical supervisors show a steadily decreasing standard of weight and growth in pupils.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF FOOD SUPPLIES IN GREAT BRITAIN.

THE FOOD SUPPLY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

At the request of the president of the Board of Trade a committee of the Royal Society has drawn up a report on the food supply of the United Kingdom which has been published recently. This report consists of three parts: Part I deals with the food supply in the period before the war (1909-1913); Part II gives a survey of the food supply at the present period of the war (1916); Part III suggests possible methods of economizing the available food supply.

The problem dealt with in the report is partly statistical and partly physiological. It is statistical because it is necessary first to ascertain as precisely as possible the quantities of the several foods available for human consumption in the United Kingdom; it is physiological because it has been necessary to determine the adequacy of the available supply for the sustenance of the nation. This depends upon, (1) the nutritive value of the several foods; (2) the standard requirements of the normal adult male as regards each of the constituents of food requisite for healthy activity; (3) the needs, in proportion to that standard, of women and children.

The quantities of the several food materials available for consumption in the United Kingdom in the five years preceding the war (1909-1913) are set forth in the report in appended tables which also show the quantities and proportions of home-grown and imported foodstuffs. As agricultural statistics are admittedly liable to error, these quantities have been estimated, based on the annual crop reports and on the results of the first census of production. (1908) combined with more recent information as to the progress of particular food-producing industries.

The committee then proceeded to calculate the amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrates contained in the given foods and their total energy value. The results of this calculation are shown in the following table:

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1 Great Britain. Board of Trade: The food supply of the United Kingdom, port drawn up by a committee of the Royal Society at the request of the president of the Board of Trade. London, 1917. 35 pp.

QUANTITIES (IN METRIC TONS) OF FOOD MATERIALS IMPORTED (NET) AND HOMEPRODUCED, AND THE AMOUNT OF PROTEIN, FAT, AND CARBOHYDRATE THEREIN, BEING THE AVERAGE FOR 1909-1913, INCLUSIVE.

[The average of population is taken as having been 45,200,000. The numbers in this table express, in metric tons (1,000 kilos-2,205 pounds approximately), the average quantities per annum for the five years 1909-1913. Based upon quantities supplied by the Board of Trade.]

In the calculation of the data shown in the preceding table the committee has followed in the main the values given by Atwater,1 multiplied in accordance with the special characteristics of the British supply. In addition the committee has had prepared an independent table by Prof. W. H. Thompson, who has employed different methods of estimating the quantities for which exact statistical information is not available. The two tables differ somewhat

in detail but the totals are closely in agreement.

A full consideration of the dietary requirements of a nation for the most part engaged in active work has convinced the committee that these requirements can not be satisfactorily met on a less supply in the food as purchased than 100 grams of protein, 100 grams of fat, and 500 grams of carbohydrate, equal approximately to 3,100 calories per "man" per day, a "man" being an average workman doing an average day's work. The committee has adopted this as their minimum standard. It should be noted that these figures refer to total food constituents as purchased and not to digestible constituents as in the Eltzbacher estimate for the German population. Moreover, it should be remembered that fats and carbohydrates are interchangeable to a limited extent.

The population of the United Kingdom has been taken as 45,200,000. Generally speaking, a woman or child requires less food than a man, i. e.. has a man value less than unity. To convert the population of men, women, and children into units, or "men" as

1 Bulletin No. 28, U. S. Department of Agriculture. The Chemical Composition of Amer