Beef is, of course, the chief muscle and fat-producing food, the army allowing 456 pounds of beef per year for each soldier. This does not mean, however, that the soldier actually eats that amount of beef annually, for, just as the currency of the country is based on the gold standard, the meat ration of the army is based on the beef standard. It is customary, therefore, to substitute pork, usually in the form of bacon, for 30 per cent of the beef ration, twelve ounces of bacon being equivalent to twenty ounces of beef. The balance of the meat ration consists for the most part of fresh beef, when it is procurable, supplemented by canned beef, corned beef, and canned hash. The meat-cutting for the army is performed by Butchery Companies, the personnel of which was trained at Camp Joseph E. Johnston, near Jacksonville, Florida, where a practical course of instruction was given in cutting meat by the so-called “natural-guide method.” By following this method, which is an expanding rather than a cutting process, inexperienced men who did not know a cleaver from a skewer were made into practical meat-cutters in less than two months. The curriculum of the School for Butchers also included a course of intensive training in the boxing of boneless frozen beef by a method which saved about 32 per cent storage and cargo space and was used extensively during the winter months. With the return of peace, graduates of this unique educational institution, many of them illiterate, find themselves as well qualified to take up the butcher’s trade as though they had wielded a cleaver and worn a white apron all their lives.