be made absolute; in other words, the small exception made in
favor of Switzerland, which has usually obtained most of its grain from
Germany, must be canceled. Savings in the present supplies of grain and
feedstuffs must be made by a considerable reduction in the live stock,
inasmuch as the grain, potatoes, turnips, and other stuffs fed to
animals will support a great many more men if consumed directly by them.
From the stock of cattle the poorer milkers must be eliminated and
converted into beef, 10 per cent. of the milch cows to be thus disposed,
of. Then swine, in particular, must be slaughtered down to 65 per cent.
of the present number, they being great consumers of material suitable
for human food. In Germany much skim milk and buttermilk is fed to
swine; the authors demand that this partial waste of very valuable
albumens be stopped. The potato crop--of which Germany produces above
50,000,000 tons a year, or much more than any other land--must be more
extensively drawn upon than hitherto for feeding the people. To this end
potato-drying establishments must be multiplied; these will turn out a
rough product for feeding animals, and a better sort for table use. It
may be added here that the Prussian Government last Autumn decided to
give financial aid to agricultural organizations for erecting drying
plants; also, that the Imperial Government has decreed that potatoes up
to a maximum of 30 per cent. may be used by the bakers in making
bread--a measure which will undoubtedly make the grain supply suffice
till the 1915 crop is harvested. It is further recommended that more
vegetables be preserved, whether directly in cold storage or by canning
or pickling. Moreover, the industrial use of fats suitable for human
food (as in making soaps, lubricating oils, &c.) must be stopped, and
people must eat less meat, less butter, and more vegetables. Grain must
not be converted into starch. People must burn coke rather than coal,
for the coking process yields the valuable by-product of sulphate of
ammonia, one of the most valuable of fertilizers, and greatly needed by
German farmers now owing to the stoppage of imports of nitrate of soda
from Chile.

In considering how the German people may keep up their production of
food, the authors find that various factors will work against such a
result. In the first place, there is a shortage of labor, nearly all the
able-bodied young and middle-aged men in the farming districts being in