had been sold to farmers from the supplies ordered by the De- partment. In the year 1918 650,000 ac. were ploughed and 580,- ooo ac. were cultivated by the Department's tractors, and in many districts where the means for arable farming had run low the ploughing programme could have been carried out in no other way. Nor was it the ploughing only that was forwarded; the difficult harvest of 1918 was in many cases only won through the capacity of the tractor to get the binders over a large acreage in a short time. Great as were the expenses attending the trac- tor programme, it was justified not only by the immediate re- sults but by the education it afforded the British farmer in the use and value of mechanical traction, an education which might have required a generation under peace conditions.
In addition to tractors, the Department obtained sanction for the purchase of 30,000 horses, and formed gangs of teams to work under the district committees in parts of the county where the programme of ploughing-up grass land was beyond the strength of the farmers themselves. The numbers purchased were limited by the skilled ploughmen available to go with them, but something like 10,000 horses were working under the orders of the Department at the end of 1918, and an equal number had been lent to farmers. The steam-ploughing tackle existing in the country was also organized, and the owners engaged to keep their machines at work not only through the winter but also overtime and on Sundays. Facilities were given for the manufacture of further sets of tackle, until there were 90 more at work by the autumn of 1918. A very great share in the programme of extra cultivation was accomplished by the energy of the steam-tackle owners. Indeed, between their first meeting in March 1917 and the end of that year over i ,000,000 ac. of ploughing and cultiva- tion had been accomplished, and 23,000 ac. had been mole- drained. The Department also purchased in America, and loaned or sold to farmers, large numbers of other implements, the manu- facture of which in Great Britain had been to a large extent suspended in favour of munitions. Something like 5,000 binders, as many harrows and proportional numbers of other implements, including nearly 500 threshing-machines, were thus obtained by the Department and disposed of to farmers.
Fertilizers. The effect of two and a half years of war and the increasing shortage of tonnage had begun to be manifest early in 1917 in a very marked disorganization of all the sources of supplies needed by the farmers fertilizers, feeding-stuffs, seeds and minor but still essential articles like sulphate of copper and binder twine. The Food Production Department took charge, and achieved remarkable success in both extending supplies and regulating distribution to ensure equality of treat- ment and the saving of transport. In nearly all cases the or- ganization was carried out through the trade concerned, the members of which formed associations and agreed to pool their resources and limit prices. Practically the only nitrogenous fertilizer available was sulphate of ammonia; shipping was no longer available from Chile for nitrate of soda, of which an earlier large Government purchase could not be moved and had eventually to be resold. Prior to the war the production of sulphate of ammonia in the United Kingdom had exceeded 400,000 tons per annum, of which about 70% was exported, while the home consumption for agriculture did not reach 70,000 tons, and indeed was not more than 78,000 tons in 1916. The propaganda and distribution scheme of the Food Production Department secured the use of as much as 234,000 tons in the year June I9i7-June 1918. Basic slag was similarly dealt with, grinding facilities were obtained, and the consumption was increased by something like 200,000 tons. Owing to the shortage of shipping it was impossible to maintain supplies of phosphate rock for the manufacture of superphosphate, but some allevia- tion of the scarcity was obtained by the diversion of shipping to North Africa, and over 750,000 tons of superphosphate were dis- tributed for the year ending June 1918.
Thus the work of the Food Production Department did succeed in putting at the disposal of farmers in the harvest of 1918 a substantially greater amount of fertilizers than they had been in the habit of consuming prior to the war, and this at a time when
the sources were diminishing had no governmental stimulus been applied and when most of the production would have gone for export with the relatively enormous prices that were ruling outside the United Kingdom. There has been but little recog- nition of the amount the British farmer gained from the control over fertilizers that was exercised from 1917 onwards.
Little need be said about the steps that were taken to ensure the supply of seeds and other articles of agricultural consumption. The most striking result was the way in which the great dearth of seed potatoes from the 1917 crop was met. More than 15,000 tons of seed potatoes were distributed in England and Wales, and, above all, the newly-formed allotments that had been so eagerly taken up in that year were furnished with the seed potatoes they needed. The opportunity was taken early in 1917 to enforce a declaration of germinating capacity and purity of all seeds sold; and this action, necessitated at the time by the scarcity of material and the resulting commercial temptation to sell in- ferior seed, so commended itself both to farmers and the trade that it was embodied in a permanent fashion in the Seeds Act of 1920.
Allotments. In no respects perhaps was the Food Production Department more successful in helping out supplies than in the stimulus and assistance it gave to the creation of allotment gardens, particularly in urban centres. The powers conferred upon the Department by D.O.R.A., which were delegated to town and urban district councils, enabled them to take possession of any unoccupied land for the purpose of letting it as allotments, and even of cultivated land with the sanction of the Agricultural Executive Committee. These powers were freely exercised, and perhaps an equal amount of land was made available for allotments by voluntary agreement. Because of these private agreements it will never be known exactly how many allotments were provided during the war period, but over 250,000 were added in England and Wales under the D.O.R.A. powers alone, and so rapid was the further growth that it was estimated in 1918 that the total number of allotments had been more than doubled. On the outskirts of "all large towns the new movement was very much in evidence in the spring of 1917; unoccupied land of all kinds, building plots, waste land awaiting development, por- tions of commons, even parks and recreation grounds, were being divided up into plots of a sixteenth of an acre and hastily pre- pared for growing vegetables. It was often late in the season before the work began, particularly for heavy land such as the clays round London, but fortunately the season proved favour- able and good results were obtained for the zeal and energy which had been put into the cultivation of what was often very unpromising material. The Food Production Department assisted in the supply of seed potatoes and other supplies; advice and instruction were organized in conjunction with the Royal Horticultural Society, which enrolled the professional gardeners everywhere into a panel of voluntary instructors. It was esti- mated that by 1918 the number of allotments had increased in England and Wales from something like 800,000 to over 1,200,- ooo, and the increase was continued after the Armistice. The number relative to the population varied considerably, but in and about Leicester there was an allotment to every three households.
The benefit of the allotment movement to the community is difficult to overestimate. There was in the first place the actual addition in the food supply, which in England and Wales alone was set at 800,000 tonsoffoodin 1918. This home-grown supply without doubt helped to steady prices in 1917. Again, the growth of fresh vegetables by urban populations, who under the prevailing conditions would have had some difficulty in buying them, contributed a very valuable factor in a war-time dietary. The development of allotments did contribute to keep down the growth of deficiency diseases like scurvy and probably of tuber- culosis, to which the food conditions of 1917-8 were favourable. Lastly, very many people obtained a considerable relief from the war strain by the physical exercise in the open air and the new interests developed by their allotments. To many people the war-time allotments revealed a deep-seated pleasure in the cultivation of the land, which had been obscured to them by
