Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1915 — GERMAN ARMIES FARMING INVADED LANDS OF FRENCH [ARTICLE]

GERMAN ARMIES FARMING INVADED LANDS OF FRENCH

More Than 75,000 Acres Under Cultivation in District Around Sedan. DOUBLE YIELDS PRODUCED Efficiency of Methods Shown—Dairy Operated by Troops—ls Peace Comes, Civilians Will Get the Crops.

By F. H. GAILOR.

In the New York World. Bergen-Op-Zoom.—ln answer to a question I had asked -one of the officers at Sedan about the German government taking all the supplies of flour into its own hands, I was told that the Germans had no fear of running short of food, and that they thought the idea of the allies being able to starve them out was absurd. "For instance." one of the officers said to me, “to show you how we Germans look ahead, we have below here more than 75,000 acres of land under cultivation in wheat and potatoes. We hope that the civilians will gather this crop and that the war will be over by the time of the harvest, but If it is not the army will reap the benefit.” Two or three days later I was taken over the "army farm" by the little fat major who has organised and directed the work. He was the bandmaster rather than the military type of German and had been the manager of a large estate in Pomerania Talk of the trenches left him cold, but at a mention of the farm or its affairs he became another person. His small black eyes twinkled, his fifty years seemed to become twenty-five, and he went into ecstasies over the improvements Germany, and especially Pomerania, had introduced in harvesting machinery, fertilisation or potatoes. As we rode along in a military automobile from Sedan to Rethel, he kept telling me of the primitive agricultural methods he had found when the German army first entered that country. Planter la Rewarded. “They don’t know how it is to use what they have got.” he kept saying as he pointed to a manure pile in front of a cottage door or a clump of trees standing in the middle of a field. “They lose one-half > of the fertilising power by not having pits, and they do not knew forestry at all. You should see Pomerania.” In the buttonhole of his tunic he wore the black ribbon w'ith two white stripes which represents the Iron Cross, and I asked him if he had ever been in the trenches. “No,” was the answer, “but I planted these fields and so increased the prospects for food. It was taken as a mark of distinguished service to the fatherland and my general recommended me for the honor. The order is for distinguished service of any kind. Germany rewards its workers as well as its fighters, and the fighters depend on the workers for their living, as they must have food. I know farming, so I am used for that Germany never wastes its opportunities.” When we had passed Rethel and gone south about six miles, we turned east along the southern boundary of the 75,000-acre farm that the soldiers of the Third German army are working. We passed many fields where the soldiers and civilians were working side by side, some whqre a soldier was driving an army horse and often an army cart and a civilian was walking alongside, spreading the manure with a pitchfork. I asked some of these civilians if the Germans were forcing them to work. They all said no, but that unless they used the army

horses for their carts and plowing they had no means of preparing the ground for planting. - I was told that the soldiers were all doing this during their five days’ rest from the trenches. “They like it because it gives them something to think about besides the war and the fighting.” Competition In Cultivation. Many of the men of the army had been farmers in North Germany, and one of the officers said: “They can fight, but they would rather farm.” I was shown pieces of land that had been cultivated In competition between different regiments. One battalion of a regiment is resting while the other 1b in the trenches, so that about half are working all the time. These fields had the regimental flags flying and their owners had fled from that part of .the country so that no civilians had had anything to do with preparing the land. At the time when I was taken over the work plowing was still going on, but all the ground was to be planted by the middle of March. The crops were potatoes and wheat. The first potatoes will be ready in" June and the first wheat later on in the autumn. I asked the major if he expected to be in that country when the crops came in. “Oh, no,” he said, “we don’t expect to have an army here then. We hope that the war will be over and the civilians can have the full benefit of our work.” The land that the army is cultivating is some of the best land in northern France, well watered and well drained. The average yield In wheat an acre has been in former years about twenty-five bushels an acre, but the Germans told me that with their “system” and care they expect to increase this to about thirtyfive bushels an acre, counting in the bits of land that are now being cultivated for the first time. They have about 50,000 acres under cultivation in wheat, so the harvest should give them about 1,750,000 bushels. Of course, the civilians will have a share of this, but even so there will be an immense profit for German efficiency and forethought At Attlgny we took horses and rode out across the fields to a hill on which the soldiers were using one of the French threshing machines for grain that had been found in the fields when the army arrived. It was one of the old type of machines with a horsetreadmill to supply the power. Soldiers were doing the work and the first thing that I noticed about these soldiers was that they had on blue uniforms instead of the usual gray. I asked why, and one of the officers said that it was a sentiment with the soldiers. They were proud of the impression the gray-green uniform had made on the world and would not use it for anything but war. These blue uniforms were the undress of the army used at home when not in active service. No Civilians in Sight. The threshing machine was working steadily, but there were no civilians in sight. I asked if the army was going to have all this grain, and was told that the soldiers got a third and the other two-thirds was to be turned in to the mayor to be used for the civilian /population. This same rule is carried out all over that part of the country where wheat has been found in the fields. From that threshing machine we went io another, which the, major proudly told me was “made in Germany.” It was placed in a nearby village under a shed, and a crowd of peasants had gathered around to watch it work. Some of them told me it was the first that had been seen in that part of the country. It was run by a little steam donkey engine, and would be the usual sight in any wheat country in the United States, but its capacity was five times that of the horse machine we had examined first, and its ,output something like ten times as great. There was a baling' machine attached to make np bundles of straw for the men and horses in the trenches. From there We went along through the village to an inclosure where many farming machines had been collected from the fluids. For the most part (hey were plows and harrows that had been brought in from miles around, and the name* of the makers

were Belgian, French and many of them American. The officers told me that they had been left in the fields by the French soldiers at ascertained distances apart so that the artillery or aeroplanes making them out from above as they were lying in the fields and seeing soldiers near them could get the range for the guns. The Germans said that they soon “got wise” to this system, and thereafter the soldiers shunned the plows as if they were signs of the plague. Many Motor Plows. On the way back to Sedan they showed us some of the 15 motor plows which the Third army has in operation, and told me that more were being sent on from Germapy every day. They still did not have sufficient machines for the number of men that they were able to spare for the work. I was told that the army farther west had 35 of these plows at work during the month of February, so I judged that extensive agricultural work was going on there as well. The plows are of German manufacture. They were using six plow points on the machines that I examined, and I was told that the engines were of 25 horse power. They could prepare about ten acres of land a day with one of these plows, and all the soldiers who were used for this work had had experience before they joined the army, so that they were proficient and able to work rapidly. When we reached Sedan It was afternoon milking time, and I went over the army dairies with the major who was in charge. I could not help wishing that this farming and this dairying, so perfectly organized and carried out by the soldiers, was the real object for which the German army was trained and disciplined. The dairy ,at Sedan was the former stable of a French regiment of cuirassiers, but the Germans had put in concrete floors and partitions where none had existed in the old days.

The large shedlike structure which had been the regimental riding school had been turned into the army butcher shop, and 250 animals were butchered there every day for the use of the men in and around Sedan. The butchering for the men in the trenches goes on nearer the lines, where the transportation is easier and the meat fresher when it arrives to be prepared for the men under fire. Run Model Dairy. In the dairy there wjere some three hundred cows —Swiss, Holsteins and even Jerseys—that had been taken from the country around Sedan. The major showed me these cows that were giving milk for the sick and wounded in Sedan and then took me to a peasant’s stable and showed me his cattle. Even the major’s enthusiasm could not exaggerate the superiority of the army cows and their surroundings as far as cleanliness and general hygiene were concerned. “Some of our cows were just like these two months he said, “and you see what our methods have done here. We have doubled the quantity of milk that the native cows give and we will also double the amount of wheat that their land will raise, if our army has to stay here long enough for us to gather in the crops.” From conversations I had with the officers, I gathered that this work in northern France is only an example of what is going on all over the territory occupied by the German army. The army in Flanders is cultivating on an even more extensive scale than that in France. In Belgium the soldiers quartered in the small towns are overseeing the work of the peasants and themselves cultivating the land that has been deserted. I do not think I became pro-German on that trip over the army farm, but I was convinced that with the policy of starvation alone, the allies would take a long time to win this war. That these men actively engaged In the fighting and so near the center of operations, are taking such thought for the future, argues that those left at home in Germany with nothing to do but think of supporting their armies are’ being even more careful to make every acre count in the final decision.