338 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



to bring production in line with demand. If by chance you have a 

 small surplus, as you have had in tobacco, which turned out to be 

 only a temporary surplus and if you were to draw that -from the 

 marKet and hold up the price, then at a later date you dispose of that 

 temporary surplus. I have one or two questions, Mr. Secretary. 



Mr. Grange.r. It has not been the family-sized farmer who has 

 produced surpluses, has it? 



Secretary Brannan. If he had not been in the business producing 

 perhaps the surpluses would not have existed. 



Mr. Granger. He has not increased his acreage very much. Is 

 it not a fact that the program that has been in effect has been the 

 thing that has stimulated big wheat and cotton production and put 

 the little farmer out of business? 



Secretary Brannan. High prices have stimulated the development 

 of larger farms, I think. During the war, there was some concentra- 

 tion of farm lands in fewer hands. VYe would fall short of our objec- 

 tive if we did not recognize that there were some other factors in there. 



One was the attractiveness of jobs in the factories and the cities 

 during the war, which tooK some of the people out of agriculture and 

 just automatically made their land available to somebody who 

 wanted to put it into a bigger unit. 



Two, the advent of machinery which has made it much more 

 efficient per unit of production to put some of these bigger units 

 together in bigger crops. I would say that is the kind of efficiency 

 which I agree with Mr. Poage that I am not too much interested in. 



Mr. Granger. Is it not a fact that under the support price for 

 cotton, even though the Government did not lose any money, that 

 profit came out of the hides of the little farmers of the country? 



Secretary Brannan. The profit? 



Mr. Granger. Yes, we made a profit on it. The reason we did, 

 the little fellow could not take a loan on his cotton and he got busy 

 and sold it. The Government took it over. He had no interest in it. 



Later on, when the price was good, the Government sold it but 

 it did not sell the cotton that the big fellow had loans on. He kept 

 his profit. It was the little fellow who suft'ered in the end. 



Secretary Brannan. Mr. Granger, I think that is true only to a 

 very limited extent and that is to the extent that the loan period had 

 not expired. For a good part of that cotton the Government had been 

 the complete owner of it for a considerable length of time. 



The loan period expired and the right of the individual to take it 

 back had expired. So it was really the Government's cotton. It had 

 been sold to the Government and it consisted of the cotton of some of 

 the big producers and the little producers as well. 



The problem you point out is a very real problem but I say to you 

 that I think adequate credit is one of the more direct ways of getting 

 at it. 



Mr. Poage. Will the gentleman yield? 



Mr. Granger. Yes. 



Mr. Poage. Is it not true, Mr. Secretary, that on that cotton, as 

 it approached the end of the loan period, anybody who held those 

 certificates representing bales of cotton in the loan, if the price of cot- 

 ton was above the loan, could always find a purchaser, whether he was 

 a large or small operator? If there was only $2.50 dift'ercnce, he could 

 sell them for $2.50. He could sell them for the dift'erence between 

 the market and the loan value if the market was above the loan. 



