Five pounds of fat treated with caustic soda can be made to yield one pound of glycerine.  This is one reason, in addition to the British blockade, which causes the great fat shortage among the civil population.

Glycerine united with ammonium nitrate is used in the manufacture of explosives.  Deprived of nitrogenous material from South America, Germany has greatly developed the process for the manufacture of artificial nitrates.  She spent 25,000,000 pounds after the outbreak of war to enable her chemists and engineers to turn out a sufficient amount of nitric acid.

Toluol, a very important ingredient of explosives, is obtained from coal-tar, which Germany is naturally able to manufacture at present better than any other country in the world, since she bad practically a monopoly in coal-tar products before hostilities commenced.

Evidently, however, substitutes to reinforce goods smuggled through the blockade have not sufficed to meet the chemical demands of the German Government, for great flaming placards were posted up all over the Empire announcing the commandeering of such commodities as sulphur, sulphuric acid, toluol, saltpetre, and the like.

Germany long ago claimed to have perfected woodpulp as a substitute for cotton in propulsive ammunition.  She made this claim very early, however, for the purpose of hoodwinking British blockade advocates.  Her great need eventually led her to take steps to induce the United States to insist on the Entente Powers raising the blockade on cotton.  She went to great trouble and expense to send samples by special means to her agents in America.

The cotton shortage began to be seriously felt early in 1916 in the manufacturing districts of Saxony, where so many operatives were suddenly thrown out of work that the Government had to set aside a special fund for their temporary relief, until they could be transferred to other war industries.

The success which Germany claimed for a cotton-cloth substitute has been greatly exaggerated.  When the Germans realised that Great Britain really meant business on the question of cotton they cultivated nettle and willow fibre, and made a cloth consisting for the most part of nettle or willow fibre with a small proportion of cotton or wool.

It was boasted in many quarters that the exclusion of cotton would make but little difference so far as clothing was concerned.  Not only does the universal introduction of clothing tickets falsify this boast, but the cloth is found to be a mere makeshift when tested.  Blouses and stockings wear out with discouraging rapidity when made of the substitute.

My personal investigations still lead me to believe in the motto of the Sunny South that:  “Cotton is king.”

Paper, although running short in Germany, is the substitute for cloth in many cases.  Sacking, formerly used for making bags in which to ship potatoes and other vegetables, has given way to it.  Paper-string is a good substitute widely used, although “no string” was the verbal substitute I often got when buying various articles, and it was necessary for me to hold the paper on to the parcel with my hands.