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Show Soviets Fight Famine With U. S. Seeds Russian Wheat Sent To Native Land to Feed War Victims. If an Axis enemy had been able to occupy North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois, Illi-nois, and then retreated after destroying or stealing all existing ex-isting seed stocks in those rich agricultural areas, our food problem would be comparable com-parable to that of the Russians Rus-sians as they move back into in-to their recaptured territory. American farmers, seed growers and victory gardeners garden-ers have responded to the needs of their ally by sending "3,500,000 pounds of seeds into these Russian areas which were plundered by the Nazis. Those seeds which were sent from Kansas and Nebraska were really returning to their native na-tive country. For 70 years ago Ukrainian immigrants who settled in the Midwest brought their native wheat with them. From this stock our own Red Turkey family has been derived, and this wheat of Russian Rus-sian origin is present in 90 per cent 'of American bread. Enough seeds were sent from America to Russia last spring to plant 500,000 acres of land with an estimated yield of 3,400,000 tons of food, enough to feed 15 million families. fami-lies. And it is sorely needed for even today there are many Russians living exclusively off black bread and cabbage soup. Average Civilian Diet. At best the average civilian diet for a workman, who puts in from 12 to 14 hours a day, consists of one bowl of thin soup, less meat, fish and poultry combined than the amount of meat in one hamburger, a single serving of potatoes, a single serving of cereal, one loaf of bread, three hard candies or little more sugar than one teaspoonful. To Americans the ration of bread may seem large, but bread must compensate for a lack of green vege- Are you ahvays Hep and Jivin'? Are you Keen, Kute and Konnivin? Can you be fs. by0 1 h smart ?j!s and silly? P Okay, sugar .p4 f ' 'V y ou're J (fa aDILLY! I kW Are the boy friends hard to find? Are your dates the hind that's blind? Are you slow with joke and quip? Too bad, sister you're a DRIP! f X s' r v N " ; J,,, ,,,,,, - " ,VN ., ,.lxj Young and old work in Russia to prevent famine. This picture of a 60-year-old farmer's wife and her grandchild typifies the agricultural struggle of this country as its citizens labor to transform battlefield into farm fields. tables, fruits and sweets, all of which are rationed, in addition to meat, fish, poultry and all cereal products. Salt, too, is rationed, and so, incidentally, inci-dentally, are matches. Though the Russian rationing system sys-tem is the same as ours, the rations are far more limited. In his scant diet the Russian gets 1,600 calories daily, compared to 2,500 consumed by the average civilian in Great Britain, and 3,000 in this country. As a result of the seeds Americans Ameri-cans have sent, the Russians this year will undoubtedly have more food. These seeds are now being harvested by millions of women and children, who practically unaided today, to-day, are reponsible for feeding the Red army and the civilian populace working behind the lines. Except for the aged men, most of whom have emerged from retirement, the women alone are left in the fields. Millions of them are now driving tractors, working in three shifts, and during harvest time, sleeping as few as three out of 24 hours. Youngsters, Young-sters, four years and over, are helping help-ing their mothers, and sometimes grandmothers, to gather the crops on which Russia depends to continue con-tinue her epic struggle. In Gardens at 5 A. M. City dwellers are also helping to ward off famine. The city folk vol unteer one day a week to work in the fields, helping farmers or growing grow-ing their own victory gardens, which line the outskirts of large cities like Moscow. On Sundays, Moscovites who spend six days a week at their factory workbench, rise at 5 a. m. to devote the entire day to weeding, weed-ing, hoeing and tending the well-manicured well-manicured acres of potatoes, lettuce, let-tuce, parsnip, squash, tomatoes, radishes rad-ishes and other vegetables. Even within the city limits victory vic-tory gardens are grown in every vacant lot, around hospitals, factories, facto-ries, school buildings and apartment apart-ment houses, along boulevards and on balconies and window sills. This year school cafeterias will serve only the produce grown by pupils in the school courtyards. The number of victory gardens is limited only by the shortage of seeds, and in this and other respects, re-spects, the seed problem has contributed con-tributed to the scarcity of food. The Russians have had to withhold wheat and vegetables from a hungry populace popu-lace in order to use this produce for seeds. Only in this way could they provide for their future needs, but it was a bitter choice to sow their fields with grain that might have been fed to little children, mothers and men and women working work-ing heroically on the home front. |