But if the Food Administration was limited in what it could effect by legal authority, there was no limit to what it could do by calling on the voluntary action of the people of the country, except by the possible refusal of the people to help. So there was set in movement a nation-wide propaganda for food-production and food-saving which resulted in the voluntary acceptance of wheatless and meatless days, voluntarily modified hotel and restaurant and dining-car meals, and the adoption of household pledges, taken by more than 12,000,000 American homes, to follow the Food Administration's suggestions for food-saving. All this, and the many other things which the Food Administration asked the people to do, and which the people did, resulted in accomplishing a very necessary thing. It enabled America not only to meet all those ever-increasing absolutely imperative calls of the Allies for food for their armies and people through 1917 and 1918, but to supply its own army and people sufficiently well to carry on the war effectively. The more food sunk by submarines, or prevented from coming to Europe from distant food sources, as Australia and Argentine and India, the more we provided by saving and increasing our production. A few figures will illustrate the actual results of the call for food conservation. We entered the crop year of 1917 (July 1, 1917, to July 1, 1918), with a wheat supply which gave us only about 20,000,000 bushels available for export. By December 1, 1917, our surplus had gone overseas and an additional 36,000,000 bushels had been shipped to the Allies. In January we learned of the further imperative need of the Allies of 75,000,000 bushels. We responded by sending 85,000,000 bushels between the first of the year and the advent of the new crop. When the crop year ended we had sent in all about 136,000,000 bushels of wheat to Europe. We were assisted in these operations by the importation of 28,000,000 bushels of wheat from Australia and the Argentine to supplement our domestic supply, but the outstanding fact was the saving in our domestic consumption, most of which was accomplished in the six-months' period from January 1 to July 1, 1918. AMERICAN RELIEF ADMINISTRATION