GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 339 



Everybody did sell them, big or little operators. The little opera- 

 tors all took their $2 or $3, if there was any profit. 



If there was not any profit, he let them go and let the Government 

 take them. Then the Government held on until a much later date. 

 No big operator held that cotton in the loan. You could not hold it 

 in the loan after the expiration of the final date of the loan period. 



Conseciuently, every big operator, if the price was below the loan 

 value, let his cotton go just the same as the little one did. 



Secretary Branxan. That is right, Mr. Poage. 



Mr. White. Will the gentleman yield further for an explanation 

 on that matter? I happened to have a direct association with it. 

 I would like to explain this. 



Not only is what Mr. Poage says true, but in the cases where the 

 Government actually assumed ownership of the cotton in the earlier 

 stages of the program, the Government held that cotton and sold it 

 at a profit and distributed those funds among the growers. I know 

 that to be a fact, because I participated in it. 



Mr. Poage. What you call putting your cotton in the pool. 



Mr. White. That is right. 



Mr. Cotton. One other reason, Mr. Secretary, that I am appre- 

 hensive (borrowing Mr. Granger's phrase of hauling down the flag on 

 the 1,800 units) is that in the section I represent we have to import 

 our feed for our cattle and poultry. The higher the support of grain 

 prices in the West, the more difficult our farmers find it to buy their 

 feed. My hopes were up the first day or two, because if it was going 

 to be an 1,800 unit or some other unit support program and then the 

 rest was going to be thrown into the market, it meant a more favorable 

 situation on the matter of feed. 



As I understand it, that is out because in these great basic com- 

 modities, if a farmer voluntarily enters into these arrangements for 

 acreage control, then we are still going to have no surplus in the 

 market at market prices and that keeps the price of feed up. Is that 

 correct? 



Secretary Brannan. Mr. Cotton, if I understand you correctly 

 there is no intention in this program of allowing the price of wheat 

 and some of the other commodities to fall below the support level 

 and stay there any appreciable length of time. 



Mr. Cotton. Any part of them? 



Secretary Brannan. No, sir. As a matter of fact, we are in the 

 business this very minute and have been this whole year of keeping 

 the prices stable. 



Mr. Cotton. And it is definite that under your proposal that 

 situation will continue unchanged? 



Secretary Brannan. Yes, sir. We are not trying to provide cheap 

 feeds for anybody. 



Mr. Cotton. Mr. Secretary, I was very m.uch pleased and interested 

 in your original presentation about all this being done for the family- 

 sized farm, not necessarily to discourage the big farro.er but to give 

 the family-size farmer a chance. I understood that that support 

 was limited so that each farmer received support only on a certain 

 amount of his crop. 



On the other hand, the surplus would go into the m.arket and would 

 furnish not only cheaper food to the consumer but cheaper feed for 

 som.e other small farm.ers who are struggling in these rural communi- 

 ties that you and I feel are worth preserving even at some expense to 



