This fine collection of photographs from the First World War shows how the British army tried to reduce its imports of forage, food and timber by supplying itself from the French land.
Murray Maclean describes the extensive wartime food needs of the army, how supplies were brought across the Channel and how they were distributed. Towards the end of the war the ad-hoc allotment activities of the troops became the inspiration for larger-scale attempts at farming. A wide range of farming activities including early tractors ploughing, horse-drawn binders and steam threshing are shown in the photographs that are fully captioned.
In the second part of the book Maclean turns his attention to forestry: to how the army’s inexhaustible demand for timber for trenches, roadways and accommodation was partly met by the activities of Canadian foresters in France.