shepherded visiting
neutrals, who do not go into the country, have little notion of the
terrific effort being put forward to make the fruits of Mother
Earth defeat the blockade, and _above all_ to extract any kind of
_oil_ from anything that grows.

Here is one notice:--

HOW THE CIVIL POPULATION CAN HELP IN THE WAR.

Our enemies are trying to exhaust us, but they
cannot succeed if every one
does his duty.

OIL _is a Necessity_.

You can help the Fatherland if you plant
poppies, castor plant, sunflowers.
In addition to doing important work for
the Fatherland you benefit yourself
because the price for oil is high.

I may say that the populace have responded. Never have I seen such
vast fields of poppies, sunflowers, rape plant, and other
oleaginous crops. Oil has been extracted from plum-stones,
cherry-stones, and walnuts.

The Government have not pleased the people even in this matter.
One glorious summer day, after tramping alone the sandy roads of
Southern Brandenburg, I came to a little red-brick village in the
midst of its sea of waving rye and blaze of sunflowers and poppies.
Taking my seat at the long table in front of the local _Gasthaus_,
and ordering some imitation coffee--the only refreshment provided
in the absence of a local bread ticket--I pointed out one of these
notices to the only other person at the table, who was drinking
some "extraordinarily weak beer," as he put it. "Have the people
here planted much of these things I see on that notice?" I asked,
pointing to one of the placards. "Yes," he said, "certainly. A
great deal; but the Government is going to be false to us again.
It will be commandeered at a price which they have already set."
Then came the usual string of grumbles which one hears everywhere
in the agricultural districts. I will not repeat them. They all
have to do with the food shortage, profiteering, and discontent at
the length of the war.

Though all Germans, with the exception of a few profiteers, are
grumbling at the length of the war, it must not be supposed that
they have lost hope. In fact their grumblings are punctuated
frequently by very bright hopes. When Douaumont fell, food
troubles were forgotten. The bells rang, the flags were unfurled,
faces brightened, crowds gathered before the maps and discussed the
early fall of Verdun and the collapse of France. Again I heard on
every hand the echo of the boasts of the first year of