The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-04
BM2NN1l5HANS BIG AUTOMOBILE SHOW BEGINS TOMORROW
MOTORS USED TO SAVE
 FRENCH AGRICULTURE
By DAVIS EDWARDS

Faris, February 21.-(Special Correspon- dence. )-Makimg two blades of grass grow where one grew before is admitted to be worthy work. Making. tons of food grow where none grew before Is the wholesale application of the same admirable effort. In Europe food Is very serious matter in these days of labor diverted from the farm to the firing line and of transpor- tatlon torpedoed by a ruthless enemy or monopolized by military necessity. Like conditions never will exist in the United States war or no war, but there are les sons we may draw from Europe and es- pecially from France.
 In various American cities the mere sense of efficiency long ago started movements for the employment of land held idle by real estate speculators. Va cant lot farming has been tried in Chi cago. New York, Detroit and other cities, With astonishing results of production from hitherto waste spaces. But such movements have been driven by the mere spirit of efficiency awake but not in- sistent through necessity in a comfortable Noiiu. LII huIOpc, III luSh6 Oay5, Iu0 world is not comfortable and there is grim necessity for the exercise of real efficiency.
 The German campaign was largely based upon the thought that through the submarines at sea and clever maneuver- ing of armed forces upon land, Eng land and France might cut off from their food supplies, lessened as their produc- tion would be by the employment of their strongest male population on the firing line By poetic trick of fate, however, It IS Germany, and not England and France, which really has felt the pinch of hunger, and one of the reasons why the Englishmen and Frenchmen have not felt 1t more severely has been the fact that they have risen to the grimmest sit nation in history and have created new sources of supply. The cultivation of waste land has been one of the principal strategies of France
 FRANCES PLAN
 About the plan which France has fol- lowed I had long and Illuminating talk the other day with M. Ducrocq of the ministry of agriculture. I had been told that he was one of those geniuses of efficiency and ingenuity which France so numerously has developed since the war began, and found that everything which
 
 We have been devoting our attention, of course, to winning the war" said M. Ducrocq, "and every ounce of energy which it has been possible to devote to that purpose has been given to it, but necessarily the soldier must find much time hanging idle on his hands, In many of the zones where it is necessary to keep fighting men weeks pass with no fighting to be done, when not even preparation for fighting is possibility, for all that can be done already has been done.
 "The French soldiers so situated do not beat their swords into ploughshares ex- acly, but they lay down their rifles (where they can be quickly found, 1 ad- miD and turn tot he cultivation of the land throughr., which they have dug trenches which later they may be called upon to defend with their lives I can not venture even an estimate of the vast quantities of foodstuffs which have been produced in this way throughout the &C., tive war areas of France.
 The agricultural effort of the soldiers upon active duty has been confined to the cultivation of what may be called kitchen garden produce"
 It should be understood that M. Ducroco had had experience in similar activity before the war began. Long ago, in peace time. he became convinced that the la bor of properly cultivating a kitchen gar. den would be restful and beneficial to the