410 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Then surely it will be possible to give the family-type farmer an 

 exemption either from marketing quotas or acreage allotments on 

 whatever that irreducible miniminn is and we suggest the unit system 

 on the family-type farm and imposition of acreage allotments if for 

 no other reason than to protect the soil which belongs in effect to all of 

 the people of the United States, or marketing quotas which, in our 

 judgment, is just as effective. 



The thing we do object to and have objected to over the years is the 

 imposition of horizontal acreage adjustments because when you get 

 down to that basis to the fellow who starts with an irreducible mini- 

 mum, you just put him out of business, as we have had a great many of 

 them in the last 15 years. 



Mr. PoAGE. Let us go back to your own farm. I think you described 

 it to us this morning. You raise wheat, for one thing, and chickens, 

 for another. 



Mr. Talbott. I do not, but I could, if I thought I could njake the 

 same amount of money. 



Mr. PoAGE. I believe you said you have hogs. 



Mr. Talbott. I have hogs and cat'tle and sheep. 



Mr. PoAGE. What I wanted to do was take another commodity that 

 was in surplus. Eggs are in surplus at the present time. I believe 

 the Secretary told us that there were 400,000 dozen eggs over what the 

 market would absorb under present prices. 



So the Commodity Credit Corporation has been buying eggs. They 

 have not been doing a remarkably good job of keeping the prices up. 



Now, let us suppose you are producing wheat. How many acres do 

 you normally produce? 



Mr. Talbott. I am not a heavy wheat farmer personally. I raise 

 anywhere from 60 to 160 acres. 



Mr. PoAGE. We will say your normal production of wheat is 120 

 acres. If we follow your program, as I understand it, you propose to 

 keep the price of that wheat up to $2.19 by seeing to it that everybody 

 has to cut down their wheat acreage somewhat. If we keep the price 

 of wheat, at $2.19, we will roughly say, you would have to cut that 

 acreage next year from 120 acres to 100 acres. I do not believe 

 you could have that much wheat acreage left. I believe you would 

 have to have even a greater cut over the Nation in order to assure 

 any $2.19 next year, do you not? 



Mr. Talbott. The answer to your question is a multiple answer. 



I think this ought to be made very clear. We are not proposing 

 that the price of wheat be frozen at $2.19. We merely used that as 

 a basis to start from, which was the parity index on all farm commod- 

 ities, to get the weighting of the interchangeable unit values in the 

 unit system. 



From then on a unit of wheat or a unit of corn or whatever it is, 

 is worth the parity index, whatever that may be determined to be. 



Mr. PoAGE. But you would attempt to pay the parity price of wheat. 



Mr. Talbott. That is right. The second thing that is important, 

 I think, is the interchangeability of the commodity units. 



Again going back to my farm, if the farm program assures me 

 that there is comparable support for hogs, for cattle, for sheep, wool, 

 flax, barley, oats, rye, any one or multiples of all of the crops I can 

 raise on my farm, I do not have to have acreage allotments or market- 



