An illuminating instance of the temper of the people in general toward conservation is afforded by the reports of railway dining cars for two months in the autumn of 1917, in which they saved out of their ordinary consumption 468,000 pounds of meat, 238,000 pounds of wheat flour and 35,000 pounds of sugar. During that time hotels and restaurants reported savings of 17,700,000 pounds of meat, 8,000,000 pounds of flour and 2,000,000 pounds of sugar. That there was a very general attempt to lessen waste of food in cooking and eating was shown by the fact that nearly all cities reported a considerable decrease, amounting in most of them to from ten to thirteen per cent, in the amount of garbage collected. [Illustration: UNLOADING WHEAT UPON A LIGHTER AT A FRENCH PORT] Because at the very beginning of our participation in the war we recognized the value of food, mobilized our food forces, enlisting the whole nation in voluntary service, and kept their operation under control for efficient war use, we were able to pour into Europe the food without which the Allied armies could not have continued their necessary effort and the populations behind them retained their health and morale. In the years before the war the United States sent an average of between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 tons of food to Europe each year. In the crop year of 1918 we doubled that amount, sending 11,820,000 tons, and were prepared in the following year to send between 15,000,000 and 20,000,000 tons. In the midst of these bountiful harvests there were no food cards and the only rationing that was necessary was that prescribed by the individual conscience. But that conscience, with the universal enthusiasm for increasing production, enabled us to send to Europe in 1918 an increase over 1917 of $504,000,000 in the value of meat and dairy products and of $170,000,000 in breadstuffs. Our total contribution in 1918 to the food needs of Europe amounted approximately to a value of $2,000,000,000. CHAPTER XXVIII THE MANAGEMENT OF FUEL