The most spectacular accomplishment of the Construction Division before the armistice was the building of the cantonments, the primary training camps which housed the soldiers summoned into the military service by the Selective Service Law. These were much more substantial installations than the national guard camps, the salvaging of six of which was noted in the tabular statement above. The national guard camps provided only tentage for the shelter of troops, whereas the cantonments housed their inhabitants in stanch wooden barrack buildings. A cantonment cost from two to three times as much as a national guard camp. Yet, on three months’ notice, at the beginning of which not even the sites had yet been selected and acquired, the Construction Division prepared sixteen cantonments ready to receive the first inductives called to the colors. The cantonments originally were all built upon leased ground. It was evident that, if the Government were forced to vacate the ground to the owners, the cantonments, salvaged for their building materials, would bring no greater recovery percentage of their cost than did the tentage camps. The Government’s loss, in such an event, on each cantonment would be twice or three times what it proved to be on the national guard camps. Before the end of the war was in sight the Construction Division had anticipated demobilization by presenting a plan to the Secretary of War for the purchase of the sites of the cantonments. Purchase would accomplish several desirable ends. As long as the cantonments were in use it would save the payment of rents. After the war was over, if the cantonments were retained by the Army, it would give the cantonments their full use-value, which was every penny they had cost. If, on the other hand, the decision was to dispose of them after the advent of peace, then ownership of the sites would permit the Government (1) to market the materials gradually and avoid beating down prices by glutting the market; or (2) to sell buildings intact, with the land on which they stood; or (3) to sell entire cantonments as they stood, together with title to the lands. Any one of these methods of disposition would bring a far greater salvage return than the forced sale of the materials and the payment of property damages.