Walking over a battle ground after a severe fight you may see thousands of shells which have never been shot because the regiment to which they belonged was obliged to retreat posthaste, leaving these as well as other valuable material behind. Frequently the Germans, having been forced out of their positions, have abandoned thousands of unexploded shells and hand grenades. Bayonets lie around topsy-turvy and helmets by the hundreds are to be seen on every hand. Modern rifles dropped by hands that will never hold another and cartridges not fired because the company went forward, perhaps when the Germans beat a hasty retreat, are the commonest of sights upon almost every battle field in Europe. Certainly all of this necessary and vital material cannot be wasted. It must not be allowed to lie unused when it is so essential to the army. Instead, it is picked up and sorted out, classified and cleaned, and prepared to be used again. Much of it is too dangerous to be left lying about and most of it is too valuable to be ignored. Therefore squads of men are organized, made up oftentimes of the older soldiers, and a few days after an engagement you can see them groping about the earth and stooping over the shell-scarred ground carefully examining it in a most minute and painstaking manner. In America the scavenger, the ragpicker, and the garbage man are looked upon as very low in the scale of social refinement, but these ragpickers of the battle field are honored and respected by the French Army, because they are conserving the materials which are most vital to the success of the Republic. Much risk is also encountered in this work of salvage and not infrequently these men lose their lives, for shells from the German guns often go beyond their mark. When stores of supplies are found in good condition, of course they are used at once, if possible, but much of the material must be sent back in motor lorries to be sorted and remade. Some conception of the economic saving accomplished by this work may be formed when you consider that after one battle many tons of copper were gathered up and loaded and sent back to the rear. Thousands of tons of steel and iron were also rescued in the same locality and in addition hundreds of rifles with millions of rounds of ammunition. Of course these materials are remolded and then go back once more to Mother Earth where much of it will again be picked up. At the close of the war, the land which is now being fought over will be of little value for agricultural purposes because it has been so tortured and mangled by the digging of trenches and the gougings of the shell holes, but it will be exceedingly valuable on account of the steel and copper which are buried there.