occupy can scarcely boast a blade of
grass. The towns which lie behind them have been picked clean to the
very marrow. France herself, into which a military population of many
millions has been poured, was never at the best of times entirely
self-supporting. Whatever surplus of commodities the Allies possessed,
they had already shared long before the spring of 1917. When America
landed into the war, she found herself in the position of one who
arrives at an overcrowded inn late at night. Whatever of food or
accommodation the inn could afford had been already apportioned;
consequently, before America could put her first million men into the
trenches, she had to graft on to France a piece of the living tissue
of her own industrial system--whole cities of repair-shops, hospitals,
dwellings, store-houses, ice-plants, etc., together with the purely
business personnel that go with them. These cities, though initially
planned to maintain and furnish a minimum number of fighting men,
had to be capable of expansion so that they could ultimately support
millions.

Here are some facts and statistics which illustrate the big business
of war as Americans have undertaken it. They have had to erect
cold storage-plants, with mechanical means for ice-manufacture, of
sufficient capacity to hold twenty-five million pounds of beef always
in readiness.

They are at present constructing two salvage depots which, when
completed, will be the largest in the world. Here they will repair
and make fit for service again, shoes, harness, clothing, webbing,
tentage, rubber-boots, etc. Attached to these buildings there are
to be immense laundries which will undertake the washing for all
the American forces. In connection with the depots, there will be a
Salvage Corps, whose work is largely at the Front. The materials which
they collect will be sent back to the depots for sorting. Under the
American system every soldier, on coming out of the trenches, will
receive a complete new outfit, from the soles of his feet to the crown
of his head. "This," the General who informed me said tersely, "is our
way of solving the lice-problem."

The Motor Transport also has its salvage depot. Knock-down buildings
and machinery have been brought over from the States, and upwards of
4,000 trained mechanics for a start. This depot is also responsible
for the repairs of all horse-drawn transport, except the artillery.
The Quartermaster General's Department alone will