he was living in pleasant retirement, the foremost authority on dried fruits in America, informed him of the army’s needs, and gave him _carte blanche_ to fill them. He sent overseas enough prunes to have supplied all the boarding-houses in America for years to come. Coffee was another important item. The British Army consumed enormous quantities of tea, the Italians depended largely upon their cheap native wines, and the French drank an alleged coffee which was really camouflaged chicory, but the American troops were given real coffee—the best that money could buy. Nothing better illustrates the quality of the food served to our men than the following telegram, sent by the quartermaster-general of the A. E. F. to Washington. “Ship 2,000,000 reserve rations packed in hermetically sealed galvanized iron cases, 25 to the case, meat to be substituted in lieu of bacon and choice George Washington coffee or other similar substitute in lieu of ground coffee.” As even the best grades of coffee can be ruined if improperly prepared, there were established at Camp Meade and Camp Johnston schools for coffee-roasting. Here enlisted men were given a course of instruction in coffee roasting, blending, grinding, and packing, and upon graduation were sent to the various camps where coffee-roasting plants had been installed. Thus the soldier received a fresher and a better cup of coffee than ever before, and the government made a saving of from two to three cents a pound, for as the green coffee was shipped to the camps by the various Zone Supply officers and was roasted every day, there was practically no overhead expense incurred.