Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

it had been very dry. On the whole so little had been planted that the entire crop could not possibly provide sufficient food for the population. Relief operations would need to be continued for at least another year. We estimated that the need for food would be as great in 1923 as in 1922. The need for clothing would be greater. The clothing the people had left from better days was wearing out, and they were unable to add to their supply—they were in fact 78 FEEDING THE HUNGRY exchanging clothing for food, which they needed worse. But what would they do the next winter, with prospects of a great scarcity of both food and fuel, which made protection from the rigorous winter of Russia all the more necessary ? Reconstruction work also deserved serious considera- tion even though we had yielded this largely to the breth- ren of Holland. Land laws were becoming somewhat more favorable and taxes promised to be more reasonable, yet the farmers were very much discouraged. They needed especially more horses, cattle, seed wheat and working capital. The soil had been poorly worked for several years, because of a lack of horses. These factors helped to convince us that a number of tractors should be sent from America in time for summer plowing for wheat. A message to this effect was cabled to America. c. Observation and Inspection Trip to the Volga Mennonite Settlements. This matter settled, with Slagel and Krehbiel in charge of the field in South Russia, Miller and I started north to Kharkow, for the purpose of inter- viewing the Ukrainian government officials. After several matters pertaining to relief work had been talked over, we tried to learn more of the whereabouts of our lost Bro. Clayton Kratz. Several officials were interviewed. They could find no record of the case, but gave us the assurance that everything possible would be done to find him. How seriously, or if at all, an investigation was. made, we have never been able to tell, only so much we know, that nothing authentic has ever been learned. We are left to lament our Bro. Kratz as a martyr to the cause of Russian Relief. From Kharkow we went to Moscow, and after a short stay in the office of Director Miller, he and I left for an inspection trip to the Volga colonies. During our travel we noticed that even though poverty was universal, THE MENNONITE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 79 conditions looked more favorable for the first several hundred miles to the east of Moscow, where nature dis- plays its best in the boundless forests of fir and pine inter- mingled with beautiful white birches. But as we neared the Volga, evidences of famine became more general, so that long before we reached Samara, conditions were very bad. Stopping at this latter city, through the courtesy of the A.R.A. officials we were enabled to make a speedy automobile trip about a hundred miles to the north, where lies the Mennonite Settlement of “Old Samara.” Thi