POTATOES AND PIGS.
IF we had the Grand Victualler to the Nation whose appointment we have so often suggested during the last three years, there would be a very easy food problem now, if any problem at all. There would be sufficient, if not generous, food supplies in the country. There was plenty of time to store up food before there was a bad shortage of ships. But suppose that our Grand Victualler were appointed at this moment. He would certainly compel the dullest mind to reflect on the urgent problems of the potato and the pig. The spring that has now begun with the promise of mild and open weather will be, as the Grand Victualler would point out in his blunt practical way, the most critical spring that Great Britain has ever known. If we use it aright, not merely on the battlefields abroad but still more on our fields at home, we shall be preserved, under Providence, from all the harm that a remorseless enemy intends. If we waste the. time and neglect the opportunity, we shall expose our- selves, through our own negligence and indifference, to graver risks than any which our forefathers had to face. We are now in the position of a besieged city. The supplies from oversea on which we have long depended are being reduced by the action of the enemy submarines. We comfort ourselves with the assurance that the blockade is less effective than its authors expected, and that in the near future we may be able to replace the lost merchant ships as fast as they are sunk. But the fact remains that our imports of foodstuffs are far smaller than they were, and that at most we can only hope to maintain these diminished imports at their present level. We must look forward resolutely to a long period of scarcity. If the scarcity is not to become famine, we must produce more food within these islands and make the utmost use of every acre lf our fertile land. And if we are to do that, we must take ull advantage of this genial spring. Lord Rhondda told the farmers a month ago that if we could only get a million acres of potatoes in England and Wales, we should be secure against starvation. We should like to see an eloquent Grand Victualler proclaiming that doctrine throughout the length and breadth of the land. Our Food Controller does his best, but he is so deeply immersed in the problem of rationing and pricing the existing stocks of food that he has little time to spare for exhorting people to add to these stocks by a great national effort. If Mr. Lloyd George were our Grand Victualler—and the post would not only be worthy of his eloquence but would absorb his whole energies—he would, we can imagine, inspire every man and woman who heard him speak on the great potato question with a passionate determination to go out and dig. He might point out that if every adult in the kingdom would grow, or -cause to be grown, one-tenth of an acre of potatoes as his or her share of the national task, the country would be safe from famine. There are about twenty-five million men and women in the United Kingdom. If each one of us became personally responsible for cultivating a potato-patch of one- tenth of an acre, we should collectively have two and a half million acres of potatoes. That would be about twice as large an area as was under potatoes last year, when people, at last awaking to the fact that more land must be tilled, 'began to work and produced the largest potato crop that we have ever had. In England and Wales last year there were half-a- million acres of potatoes. If that area were doubled, as it might easily be if every man or woman cultivated one-tenth of an acre or paid some one to cultivate it, Lord Rhondda would have his desired million acres of potatoes •to keep famine away. The appeal .to every citizen to do his small share of the work would, however, be far more effective than the general statement of the total area required. The ordinary man feels helpless when he is told that the country needs a million acres of potatoes. But tell him to grow at least one-tenth of an acre of potatoes as his individual share of the task, and he will, we are sure, respond readily. The average town allotment is less than a tenth of an sore, but it must be remembered that potatoes require less attention than the green vegetables grown by so many -allotment- holders and are far more valuable as food. The farmers, in view of the scarcity of labour, are somewhat unwilling to put more land underpotatoes, which are not harvested so easily as corn, but the objections have been weakened by the offer of a sure market for all their crop after November 1st, and would easily be removed by a Grand Victualler who knew what • he wanted. A few acres more for potatoes on every farm would suffice, if the allotment-holders, present and prospective, and the cottagers did their part manfully We shall no doubt be told that two and a half -million acres of potatoes in a good season would produce a crop so large that it could not be utilized. -But we can • never have too many potatoes. This wonderful plant is not only 'food for man, whether cooked separately or used as a constituent of bread, but it is also good food for the pigs, which feed the land, both for the horses who till the land and transport its produce, and for the cows whose milk goes to the infants and the mothers and the invalids. 'It must be remembered, too, that the potato plant is most prolific, and that an acre of potatoes will feed nearly twice as many people as an acre of corn. Our Grand Victualler would be fully justified in arousing enthusiasm for the potato, and in tag every possible measure to secure that the largest possible amount of land was put under potatoes this spring.
He would also have a word to say for the pig. We all used to smile at the legendary Irish peasant who described the pig as " the gintleman that paid the rint," but war has taught a good many of us that the pig cannot be neglected with impunity. The Government announced some time ago that there would be no feeding-stuffs to spare for pigs, and eminent physiologists were encouraged to point out that after all man could live very comfortably without bacon for breakfast. Mr. Prothero committed himself to the assertion that a pig consumed six or seven pounds of meal for every pound of pork that he yielded at the butcher's, and was therefore a End of " profiteer " who must be: abolished for the duration of the war. However, the ordinary man, who needs his bacon and his fat pork as part of a rational diet, has not been convinced by the official case against the pig. His scepticism has been strengthened by the argunients of the farming community, set forth in letters to the Times for weeks past. It has, we think, been proved conclusively that pigs can be fattened without so great a demand on our scanty stocks of cattle-food as Mr. Prothero supposed. Mr. S. F. Edge, who is himself a practical" pig-breeder, has pointed out once more that, as in the Middle Ages when Cedric's thrall Gurtli herded his swine in Sherwood Forest, so to-day ,pigs can pick up a good deal of their food for themselves if they are allowed to roam over waste land and in woods. Even if they are shut up in sties, they do not require nearly as much expensive meal as the Minister of Agriculture supposes. Mr. Edge says that— "A couple of little pigs should be kept and fed on any spare scraps, any surplus green stuff from the garden, and potatoes and other roots not suitable for human food. This, coupled with a pound or two per day of coconut cake, palm kernel meal, con- demned salvaged wheat,- and various things of this sort •that are obtainable in small quantities, would enable large numbers of people each to rear-a few little pigs, which may be moiled all when round about 100 lb. live weight."
The whey from cheese-making is an example of the various seemingly useless by-products on which pigs flourish. 'Mr. C. B. Fisher, the well-known agriculturist, has cited the Board of Agriculture's own Journal for December last as authority for the statement that pigs need only be fattened for a few weeks on meal before they are sent to market. Others have shown that there is plenty of food refuse from towns and camps and private households which might be collected, with the exercise of a little forethought, for the feeding of pigs. In some military camps, indeed, energetic Commandants have already begun to grow their own pork by establishing piggeries and feeding the pigs on the abundant waste from the messes. Clearly, then, there is more hope for the British pig than Mr. -Prothero would have us believe, though many breeders, especially in East Anglia, may have to change their methods. But, as in the case of potatoes, the pig-question is primarily a matter of individual effort, with sympathetic guidance from the authorities. It is -well known that the really alarming decline of the pig population is mainly due to the closing of the cottage pigsties. No doubt the strict regulations of Local Authorities and sanitary inspectors, occasioned by outbreaks of -swine-fever, have had something to do with this ; energetic Councils which have started municipal pig-breeding schemes have not seldom been foiled by an untimely epidemic. But the chief reason-why so many pigsties stand empty is probably economic ; feeding-stuffs are dear, the value of refuse food is not understood, and •the maximum prices fixed for pork are regarded by the country people as unduly low. Our ideal Grand Victualler would certainly remove these real or supposed -grievances. The country would not mind paying an extra penny or two a pound for pork or bacon if it could thereby be assured of a supply of the much-needed meat and fat. The Grand Victualler would tell every cottager to heap a pig or two, guarantee him a fair price if he wanted to sell, and free him from the lurking fear that his pig would be commandeered for the benefit of other_ people. It seems to us that, with a very little encouragement from the powers that be, the number of pigs in. the country might. be very greatly increased in a short time. The numerous pig clubs, and the co-operative piggeries that have been set up in. South_Wales and elaewhere, only need some official stimulus and help to do a great deal more than they have done. We do not know whether the Rural League is justified in declaring that a good sow, with two litters a year, will contribute two thousand five hundred pounds of pork to the national larder, but there is no doubt that the pig is relatively the most valuable of_ all the animals which we rear for food, and the one whose disappearance we should feel most keenly. There is unfortunately no reason to doubt that he is disappearing. In-the first week of February the market supply of fat pigs was less than a fourth of the average number recorded for the same week in the three preceding years, and the -supply of store pigs had declined by two-thirds. In June last there were only eight pigs in the country for every nine existing a year before. It is surely tecessary to stop this serious decline in one of our most important sources of . food.. If, as we believe, more pigs can be bred without trenching on the stocks of grain. reserved for human food—and of course for the brewers—the Food Con- troller and the Minister of Agriculture should see to it that no word or action of theirs needlessly obstructs the efforts of would-be pig-keepers. If we cannot have a Grand Victualler to encourage actively the production of every kind of home- grown food, we must not have any more official displays of hostility to the pig.
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