Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1917-05-08
ALSO
farm IN FRANCE

dent: The service of agriculture il
now one of the regular branches O
the French army.
1t is just as much an integral par
of the French military machine as
a whole as is the infantry, the caval
ry, the artillery, the engineers or the
aviation corps.
Military agriculture is one of the
latest developments of modern war
fare along with such things as gas
masks, the rehearsing of battles be-
fore they are fought and aerial tor
pedoes. While the present great
European conflict has demonstrated
that war must ever be destructive,
and possibly more destructive than
ever before, yet the constructive, con-
sentative basis on which the French
seek to conduct it has developed NUM-
erous possibilities for lessening and
repairing the destructiveness.
| In general way the object of this
Service of Agriculture is to keep
the farming in the entire war zone
and especially in the immediate vi
entity of the front lines up to its
normal and maximum productiveness.
| 1t is now as much the duty of every
soldier in the French army to help in
these agricultural labors, as it is to
fight, while the army as whole con-
tributes not only the farm labor but
also the horses and even the impli-
ments necessary.
The agricultural work to be done
in the war zone divides itself into
three general classes. First of all the
extending of enough help to the farm
ers still living in the zone to enable
them to plant and harvest their
crops. Secondly, nearer the front
where the civil population has been
Obliged to flee entirely and where the
farms are completely abandoned, the
army must take over all this ground
and cultivate it itself in precisely the
same manner as though the farmers
themselves were still there. Thirdly,
as fast as French soil is won back
from the Germans the Agricultural
Service must undertake the restoring
of this ground to a state of fertility
and the planting of 1t in crops at the
earliest possible moment.
Every general commanding on the
French front is required to divide
his portion of the war zone into Sec
tors, each one comprising an aver
age of twenty to twenty-five villages
or farming communities. In addition
to the general officers that are desig-
mated for the administration of the
agricultural service an under-officer,
who is chosen because of his agricul-
tural fitness is assigned to each Sec
tor and remains permanently in
charge of the agricultural work
there, regardless of where his regi-
ment may be moved afterwards.
In the meantime the project OF
each department in the war zone is
requested to make out a list of all
agricultural work that needs to be
done, together with the degree OF
urgency and place 1t at the disposi.
tion of the military officer in charge
of each sector. The project must al
so provide the tools and the grain
and seed for sowing.
Entirely regardless of whether the
troops stationed in a given sector are
there for repose or whether they are
there for fighting. they must perform
1.-THE agricultural labor that is wait.
ing to be done. Likewise when troops
are on the march, if they stop in any
sector, even for only two or three
days they must participate in farm
labor under way.
When the troops move on they
leave report with the permanen,
neutrality-suspicious. officer in charge
showing just what they have done sc
that when the next troops come along
they can take up the work where the
lothers left off.
One and only one iron clad rule has
been adopted by the military author.
titles and that is that under no cir
cumstances whatever must military
troop, whatever it's size may be, pass
ling through a given sector where
there is agricultural work to be done
leave that sector without the work
being further advanced than when II
came in.
The army must furnish horses, eli
ther from the cavalry, the artillery OF
the supply trains whenever horses are
needed. The mechanics attached tt
the army are also required to assist
1.-The farmers in shoeing their horses
and in the repairing Of their agricul.