Yerington times. [volume] (Yerington, Nev.) 1907-1932, 1917-05-12
SOLDIERS OF THE SOIL

The widely known initials which
have come TO be significant as the
wireless signal of distress, Save Out
Ship" are to be given an additional
Importance in being applied to an
other line OF life-savng-namely, that
particular service rendered by the
Soldiers of the Soil" The term is
attributed to Secretary Houston OF the
United States. department of agricul-
ture, and it is SO apt and felicitous
that it is destined to come into gen
eral acceptance.
This is an army the raising OF which
is quite as necessary and urgent, and
which will require quite as much en-
ergy and judgment, as the assembling
OF the other force which is destined
to bear arms. The country will need
more men to serve with the spade
than with the saber, with the hoe and
reaper than with the rife; and it may
be even harder to get them when and
where they are wanted. Montana,
Minnesota, the Dakotas and Wiscon-
sin have already started a recruiting
campaign to raise force of lOO,OOC
men for home service in the fields OF
those five States. Unless these grain
growing commonwealth can be as
sured of a large army of harvesters
they will not feel it prudent to plant
their full acreage.
Few of us realize that the total
stock OF food available in the alice
world today is actually insufficient to
last until the next harvest except by
the practice OF the most rigorous saw
ing. Yet that is exactly the situation
according to the best-informed stu
dents of the subject. Still fewer OF
us believe it possible that the United
States itself is likely to go hungry
unless it enters upon course OF strict
economy and control Yet this is the
forecast OF careful statisticians who
are not pessimists either Hardly any
oil us can believe that the situation Is
as serious as these observers describe
it; yet we cannot dispute their Ing
ures and hence cannot with IMMUNITY
ignore their conclusions. All this talk
OF control, conservation, regulation
of the nations stuffs-even the
talk of an allowance or ration-i.
based upon something more real thar
most of us have recognized.
II we are expected by our colleague
and allies in this war to help feed
them as our most valuable service il
the conflict, and it shall happen that
we are actually unable to feed our
selves, the consequences will be mos.
humiliating and disastrous. We hav,
no right to add our adyersities to oui
allies burden; if we are to help them
at all, it must be with our prosperity
SO broad visioned an observer as Her
bert c. Hoover says that unless VIC
come to the rescue with campaign o.
such planting as was never known be
fore, we stand a grave chance Of
not fight without food" This makes
it obligatory that in the performance
losing the war, because our allies can
OF our most vital part OF the war
the furnishing of food-our agricul
tural methods must be changed and
immensely enlarged, or we shall fail
abjectly. In our giantlike growth VIC
have neglected the primal requisit
of providing, to the extent that we
might have done, the material means
OF existence. We have the acres
broad and fertile, and numbered today
in unused millions. Shall we send
back to our starving friends in Europe
the pitiful excuse that we can give
them no relief because We have no
TIE men to plant and gather the crops
The suggestion gives impulse to
the newly named s. o. s., who's
ranks reveal many vacancies and who
can and must, If other means fail
be forced, drafted, conscripted, into
the performance of this all-essential
and obligatory seryice-Deseret New
r a