ppeal. He thereupon appointed Hoover Food Administrator
with practically unlimited powers, legalizing the work already begun on
his own initiative.

Hoover at once made arrangements to prevent the storage of wheat in large
quantities and to eliminate speculative dealings in wheat on the grain
exchanges. He then offered to buy the entire wheat crop at a fair price
and agreed with the millers to take flour at a fair advance on the price
of wheat. Fearful lest the farmers should be discouraged from planting the
following year, 1918, he offered to buy all the wheat that could be raised
at two dollars a bushel. If peace came before the crop was disposed of,
the Government might be compelled to take over the wheat at a higher price
than the market, but the offer was a necessary inducement to extensive
planting. In the meantime Hoover appealed to the country to utilize every
scrap of ground for the growing of food products. Every one of whatever
age and class turned gardener. The spacious and perfectly trimmed lawns of
the wealthy, as well as the weed-infested back yards of the poor, were dug
up and planted with potatoes or corn. Community gardens flourished in the
villages and outside of the larger towns, where men, women, and children
came out in the evening, after their regular work, to labor with rake and
hoe. There were perhaps two million "war gardens" over and beyond the
already established gardens, which unquestionably enabled many a citizen
to reduce his daily demands on the grocer, and stimulated his interest in
the problem of food conservation. As a result of Hoover's dealing with the
farmers, during the year 1917 the planted wheat acreage exceeded the
average of the preceding five years by thirty-five million acres, or by
about twelve per cent, and another additional five million acres were
planted in 1918. The result was the largest wheat crop in American history
except that of 1915, despite the killing cold of the winter of 1917 and
the withering drought of the summer of 1918. An increase in the number of
live stock was also secured and the production of milk, meat, and wool
showed a notable development.

Hoover achieved equal success in the problem of conserving food. He
realized that he must bring home to the individual housewife the need of
the closest economy, and he organized a nation-wide movement to secure
voluntary pledges that the rules and requests of the Food Administration
would be observed. People we