After that came the public. Private dealers were permitted to bid on lots of supplies. Regular days were set apart for the sale of various classes of commodities: Monday, textiles and leather goods; Tuesday, raw materials, machinery, and engineering supplies; Wednesday, general supplies; Thursday, medical supplies and motor vehicles; Friday, clothing; and Saturday, food supplies. These bidding sales were widely advertised, in advance, and bids could be submitted either to the War Department in Washington or to any of the zone, or district, supply offices. The private consumer could buy army food, clothing, textiles, tools, and other commodities of household utility either by parcel post (through the coöperation of the Post Office Department) or at any of the Army’s retail stores, a great chain of which was set up throughout the country. By sales and transfers the Army, at the end of the first year of effort, had disposed of supplies originally procured under the administration of the Director of Purchase to the value of $357,000,000. The transfers and sales brought back to the War Department more than seventy-seven cents of every dollar originally expended in the production of these goods. The story of the ingenuity displayed by the Government’s officers in selling these and other surplus supplies (particularly the surpluses in the hands of the Ordnance Department and the Air Service after the armistice) is left for another chapter. Before dropping the subject of the demobilization of the quartermaster war business, however, we should not overlook the disposition of the horses and mules acquired by the Army, but not shipped to France. The Remount Service purchased about 308,000 animals during the war. It started the war with about 90,000 animals on hand. The war losses amounted to 33,000 animals. Approximately 68,000 were shipped to France. Thus, at the time of the armistice the Remount Service had in its stables and corrals nearly 300,000 horses and mules. About 215,000 of these were declared surplus and sold, and the rest were retained for the permanent Army. The decision of the Remount Service to sell 200,000 animals on the market as rapidly as the market could absorb them was roundly criticized by horsemen, who pointed out that normally the American market had never absorbed more than 60,000 horses and mules in a year. The result would be, the critics declared, that the Government would get fair prices for the first 50,000 or 60,000 animals offered, and after that the surplus animals would be a drag on the market, not only forcing the Government to stand a great financial loss, but so depressing prices that dealers everywhere would suffer. On the other hand, it was costing the Government a dollar a day to feed and care for each of these animals. By retarding the sales the Government might be able to get better prices, but the gain would be more than absorbed by the cost of maintaining the establishment in the meantime.