GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 377 



things on my farm besides wheat. I can raise barley and oats and 

 corn for feed and I can raise flax and I can raise rye. I can go into 

 the dairy business. I can raise poultry or hogs or cattle or sheep or 

 wool, any one or any combination of those commodities. Under that 

 kind of an assumption, let us go back to my farm. The county or 

 community committeeman comes up to me and tells me this problem of 

 the surplus of wheat. You do not need any regimentation, any acre- 

 age allotments for marketing quotas dealing with me on that basis. 



I say to the committee, "Sure, I know the situation. What is the 

 over-all pattern? What is the over-all need for wheat as well as 

 these other commodities? What is it we are short of? What do you 

 want me to produce? I do not raise wheat because I am in love 

 with wheat, I raise wheat because I am more apt to be able to stay 

 in business under our present program than I am raising anything 

 else. But if I can have the assurance that with a reasonable crop 

 I can make just as much money raising barley or oats or rye or flax 

 or hogs or corn or cattle or sheep or wool or going into the dairy 

 business or poultry and eggs and all of the rest of it, just tell me what 

 it is that you want me to shift into and I will be glad to cooperate." 



It is our judgment that a program should be worked out so that 

 all commodities in agriculture can receive comparable treatment. I do 

 not mean comparable treatment in terms of dollar values, but I mean 

 so that a farmer can see that he can come out just as well from a cold- 

 blooded financial economic standpoint with changing commodities. 



It Avas our belief that within tlie limitations of soil and climate is 

 credit — if he needs credit where a prol)lem is involved of completely 

 junking his equipment and buying new equipment to raise a different 

 crop, which is another problem besides prices — and within the frame- 

 work of one other thing which exists in some part of the countries 

 within that limitation, that in relation to some of the crops in some 

 areas that perhaps could be produced that are needed there are pres- 

 ently no existing facilities for handling and marketing that crop. 



Witliin those limitations it is our belief that if a farm program 

 treated all commodities on a comparable basis that with a few excep- 

 tions and in a reasonably short period of time we could get the adjust- 

 ments of production within agriculture and get them with less so- 

 called regimentation than with any other device that has as yet been 

 proposed. 



There is one other thing. In the final paragraph of section 101 

 you will note the language that — 



It is further declared to bp the policy of Congress to eiiconrnge shifts iu production 

 where neces:>ary through incentives in the form of increases of parity above 

 the levels herein provided for Government assistance. 



We have one illustration. I think, that is perhaps as good as any- 

 thing we could have. Many of the things we talk about in the farm 

 program are, of necessity, theory. Anything is theory until it has 

 been done and the results have been demonstrated. We have demon- 

 strated what support prices on a parity-plus basis will do on a volun- 

 tarv basis among farmers. 



I cite you the example of flaxseed, which may not be generally fam- 

 iliar to many people because the flaxseed is a crop that is raised largely 

 in a relatively small area in the United States. The country, a few 

 years ago, desperately needed more flaxseed for feeding to livestock 



