Enough and No More

Everywhere there were signs that there would be enough food for the winter: golden patches deepening in the green velvet counterpane; the full grain in the ear; the arched necks of horses dipping willingly as the first fields fell to the reapers; the sputter of tractors; and the patina of maturity touching the cabbage leaves in thousands of little back yards. God helping, it would be the biggest harvest in all of Britain's history, and people were grateful. Not that they would eat more--they would eat less. But every extra ton of ripening grain was a ton of shipping saved for guns.

They clucked approval of the farmers, and of handsome, diligent Robert Spear Hudson, 56-year-old heir of a soap fortune, who has proved himself Britain's most effective Minister of Agriculture in this century. Together Hudson and the farmers have accomplished near-miracles with Britain's tradition-ridden and big-business-ridden agriculture. In three years they have:

P: Increased arable acreage in the United Kingdom from twelve to 18 million acres;

P: Doubled fodder production, thus replacing from home fields the 5,500,000 tons imported before the war;

P: Increased total food production from one-quarter (prewar) of Britain's consumption to two-thirds of its consumption;

P: Grown 70% more potatoes;

P: Grown the one million tons of vegetables which Britain imported before the war, a 50% increase in home-growing;

P: Produced 10,000,000 more gallons of milk than in the best pre-war year.

With farm hands in khaki, all sorts of people had helped: 28.000 green-sweatered girls of the Women's Land Army, soldiers on harvest furlough, schoolboys on vacation, munition workers in their yards and window-boxes, London housewives keeping chickens in bomb holes.

Reporting these accomplishments to the House of Commons last week, Minister Hudson might have sounded gratified. Instead, he sounded urgent. Wheat acreage must be expanded by another 600,000 acres, said he. There must be a 10% increase in the potato crop, more milk. There must be farming by moonlight to get the job done. To save ships, Britain's green earth would have to provide more food for the factory canteens, more food for Allied mess plates.-

But civilians in all but heavy industry will get little or no milk, no eggs (unless they can feed their chickens exclusively on disappearing kitchen scraps), few tinned foods from the U.S., no vegetables except potatoes, cabbage and brussels sprouts. Eating in Britain will be even less fun, even more functional. The rations will be enough to keep people nourished, and no more.

But after two years of rationing, the British could use a little extra energy. Last week they got it: two ounces of candy a week.

*Dehydrated meat from the U.S., which Britons ate in 100-odd restaurants, also saved shipping. Drying reduces weight and volume of most meat by two-thirds, e.g., the boned, dehydrated meat of four sheep packs into a 3 1/2-gallon tin. Unpacked, it looks like plug tobacco. London chefs soaked it in water, found six ounces enough to feed four people. A British dehydration plant now weekly reduces 80 tons of potatoes and carrots to nine tons of concentrate, some to go by air to troops in Malta and Iceland. Vegetables lose up to 95% of their original water content, from ten to 50% in vitamins. Dehydration does not spoil the food's taste, but tart Humorist A. P. Herbert found the word untasty. Gibed he: "It is aquating. I am now going to dehydrate my socks."

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