In the spring of 1919 the Government had on hand a surplus of something more than 100,000,000 pounds of copper. The copper industry was in a serious plight. The producers had on hand a surplus of 1,000,000,000 pounds, but still they were keeping the mines, smelters, and refineries running to prevent unemployment and in the expectation that the resumption of normal business would soon create a demand for copper. Any dumping of the war department surplus most certainly would have closed the mines. Instead of that, the Government sold the entire surplus back to the producers. The industry continued in operation, and the Government received an average of seventeen cents a pound for its copper, a fair recovery. The War Department’s surplus of 161,000,000 pounds of sulphur was sold through the industry. At the armistice the Government had on hand some 600,000 tons of nitrate of soda imported from Chile for the powder factories. About half of this was retained as a war reserve. The Department of Agriculture disposed of 125,000 tons of it to farmers for use as fertilizer. About 142,000 tons was sold for the War Department at market prices by the nitrate importers who had supplied the commodity to the Government in the first place. A stock of 59,000 tons of nitrate in Chile, the property of the American Government, was brought to the United States and sold by the importers on the same terms. Approximately 730,000 bales of cotton linters in the war department surplus are being used by the commercial powder industry on such terms as will return to the Government from one-third to one-half the original cost of the linters. A surplus of 66,000,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate was sold at prices which reimbursed the War Department to the extent of about one-third its war-time cost. It should be borne in mind that all these sales were actually consummated by the production bureaus in whose hands the supplies remained as surplus after the armistice, the Sales Branch merely coördinating the sales and approving the terms. It will be impracticable here to go into the details of the salvage and sales activities of all the bureaus, but enough can be told to illustrate the ingenuity and business enterprise employed in disposing of the great war surpluses. As the occasion demanded, the government salesmen had to be merchants, barterers, auctioneers, and even partners with commercial organizations.