PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 507 



senate. There are three measures proposed. One of them is to increase 

 the limit which the Federal Farm Land Bank may lend to any individual, 

 from $10,000 to $25,000. Evidently that will go through without much 

 difficulty. Everybody now — almost everybody — seems to be for it. 



Another is the federal authorization of live stock loan companies, 

 calling for no money from the government, but a sort of live stock loan 

 company after the manner of some which have been carried on for many 

 years past, but this under federal authority. Evidently that will be 

 passed. 



The third law calls for an addition to the Federal Farm Land Bank 

 system, appropriating $5,000,000 of government 'money as capital stock 

 for each of the district Federal Farm Land Banks, twelve of them in all, 

 and setting up in those banks the machinery for rediscounting farm pa- 

 per, taking it from the local banks, something after the manner in which 

 the War Finance Corporation has been doing its work, and the money, 

 in addition to the capital, which is to be used for discounting that farm 

 paper and making loans, to be raised through the sale of bonds, deben- 

 ture bonds, after the manner in which the Farm Land Bank system 

 raises its money for making a mortgage loan. I understand that the com- 

 mittee, which has been holding hearings on that question, will be ready 

 to report within a week or ten days, and the probability is that that will 

 be reported favorably. It also has the support, I think, of the vast ma- 

 jority in both the house and senate. It was one of the matters treated by 

 the president in his recent message to congress. It has his full sup- 

 port. It has the support of other members of the administration and 

 of not only the farm bloc group but the conservative group as well. So 

 I think it is reasonable to expect that within the next sixty days, or be- 

 fore congress adjourns, there will be legislation along the line of farm 

 credits that will adequately meet the needs of the farmers, whether in 

 the corn belt, in the southern states or in the range country of the west. 



Just a word about what we have tried to do in the Department of 

 Agriculture. We have been giving especial attention during the past 

 year and a half to the economic side of the work of the Department, 

 strengthening that as rapidly as we could. Congress has been very good 

 to us. They gave us last year, for example, $70,000 increased funds for 

 the year, to be used almost altogether in strengthening our live stock 

 estimates. The live stock estimates of the Department have never been 

 entirely satisfactory, not the fault of the Department but because of lack 

 of money. We had only $20,000 to $25,000 for making the estimates on 

 the live stock of the United States, and it was impossible to get satis- 

 factory results. We are building up an organization now through which 

 we hope to be able to tell you with some assurance how many cattle, 

 how many hogs and how many sheep there are in the country, at least 

 twice a year. And we hope to be able, after a time, to go even farther 

 than that and keep a sort of balance sheet on feeding cattle, cattle thai 

 are being fed, so that you may have statistics that will be really depend- 

 able statistics and tlyit you can take as a pretty fair guide in your feed- 

 ing operations. It is going to take time to do that. It is no easy thing 

 to get the sort of live stock estimates that you yourself feel are reliable 

 estimates. This is a great big machine that has got to be built up. 



