GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 407 



Mr. Hope. If you knew what a reasonable price was and what a 

 good diet was and what a reasonable supply was, you could do that. 



Mr. Pace. You know what he is thinking about, do you not ? 



Mr. Hope. I am not sure that I do. 



Mr. Talbott. As long as the gentleman raised the question of Tom 

 Campbell and wheat, let's talk about wheat for a moment more. 



After we build adequate reserves — and we recommend that the 

 country as a whole ought to have an adequate year's crop in reserve as 

 a safety factor for the whole population — -could we not conceive of a 

 program where we gave family-type farmers an exemption of this 

 irreducible minimum that you talk about or our suggestion of the 

 acres normalh' necessary to raise a reasonable number of units in rela- 

 tion to the multi]~)le prospects of the unit system ? Then could we not 

 use marketing quotas which would restrict the sale? We have done 

 that in the past. We could give ^Mr. Campbell the same kind of quota 

 we give anybody else and let him build granaries until he gets tired 

 of raising wheat and putting them in his own granaries and keeping 

 them and then maybe he would decide it was not so profitable to raise 

 half a million bushels of wheat and take 90,000 acres of cheap land 

 in ^Montana that displaces 300 families that could be making a good 

 living on that land. 



Mr. PoAGE. You can do one or two things. I think certainly you 

 can put on marketing quotas and restrict yotir production so as to 

 hold the price to any level we want it. 



I am one of those who believes you can hold a price to a reasonable 

 level if you restrict production sufficiently. But you cannot restrict 

 that production and at the same time preach an economy of abundance. 

 I recognize that you can carry out the ])rogram of widespread produc- 

 tion and make direct payments to the farmers to make up for the loss 

 that he suffers in the market place by reason of the drop in prices. 



But I do not think you can have both this abundant production and 

 a high price in the market place. You can have either one you want. 

 I do not think there is any question about our ability to have either 

 one. But nobody has ever been able to show me how we could have 

 both at the same time. 



Mr. Andresen. Will the gentleman yield ? 



Mr. PoAGE. Yes, but I would like an answer to my question. 



Mr. AxDEESEX. Before he answers, I would like to observe that 

 when you have marketing quotas you have to have a heavy penalty in 

 addition to the marketing quota for the excess production over tiie 

 allocated acreage. Otherwise, it will not work. 



Mr.. Talbott. That is right. 



Mr. AxDRESEx. And in the penalty you come to the point where 

 probably the Government will have to sue every farmer in order to 

 recover the penalty. 



Mr. Talbott. I do not recall that we had great difficulty during 

 that period when we did have marketing quotas. 



Mr. xA.XDRESEN. Maybe not out in your country but in Ohio and sev- 

 eral other States they did. We did not in Minnesota because we do 

 not raise very much wheat, 



Mr. Talbott. We raise quite a lot in Xorth Dakota and I do not re- 

 call any difficulty at all. I carried a marketing card and everything 

 I marketed had to be marked on the card and certified and turned in to 



