The system that England works upon is the establishment of a base of supplies at home, situated at Woolwich, where the government supply depot was established for the especial purpose of meeting the demand of an emergency in case of war. At this depot supplies have been kept ready for shipment to the front at a moment’s notice. They are all packed in cases, the heaviest of which weigh one hundred pounds, while the majority weigh from thirty to eighty pounds. These cases are of convenient size for rapid transportation in the field, and they are so packed that it is not necessary to open them until they are issued to the consumers. Cape Town was made the secondary, or field base, where all supplies are shipped as fast as they can be loaded on ships; and it is necessary to keep an extra supply of rations and forage sufficient for the consumption of every man and animal on the field for three months, at least, and as much more as it is possible to accumulate above the amount used. Should this reserve stock be called upon, the men would be put on shorter rations until it was an assured fact that the delay in the arrival of fresh supplies was overcome. The reserve stock consists of 5,000 tons of canned beef, 5,000 tons of white flour, 5,000 tons of hard bread, 90 tons of coffee, 50 tons of tea, 780 tons of sugar, 150 tons of salt, 10 tons of pepper, 1,500 tons of jam, 500,000 gallons of rum, 40,000 tons of oats, 40,000 tons of corn and bran, 40,000 tons of hay. None of this may be used unless it is absolutely necessary and all other supplies fail. Besides this supply at the Cape, an intermediate depot was established at de Aar junction, which is about half way to Pretoria; others were at Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, and the last one was established at Pretoria. My first idea when looking through these supply stations was of the huge part America played in the South African war. One might well imagine he was in the commissary department of the United States army, as nearly all the supplies bear the mark of American production. While I was at the German army manœuvres I observed the same thing--American farmers were keeping the German army alive; and my first sight of anything that pertained to war in the South African struggle was a great pile of cases of the familiar Chicago canned beef, such as we used in Cuba, on the wharf at Baira, in Portuguese South Africa. I think the English army could be trailed from Cape Town to Middleburg by empty cans of what they call “bully beef,” each one with the Chicago or Kansas City label. “I didn’t know America was so large,” said an officer to me one day, “until I saw so much tinned meat down here.” That same “tinned meat” from Chicago will do more to command the respect of every European nation towards the United States than all the battleships we can float. They have realized what it would mean to attempt to feed an army without the assistance of America.