482 GEN]|RAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. Kline. That is right. 



Mr. CooLEY. If that is true, as I understand that sentence we do not 

 need to do anything but adjourn and go home. These supplies of 

 cotton are going to put us in bankruptcy. Supplies of all these other 

 surplus commodities are going to put us in bankruptcy. If that is 

 what you mean by it, I want the record clear on it. If you do not 

 mean it, I want you to clear it up. 



Mr. Kline. I want to make the record clear that that is not what 

 we mean. 



Mr. CooLEY. What do you mean by it ? 



Mr. Kline. If we had meant that we could have written that sen- 

 tence and gone home, but we have written some 20 pages of testimony. 



Mr. CooLEY. You have done that same thing this morning. On 

 every question that has been asked of you, you have made a great 

 speech and I have not had a single direct answer that gives me any 

 satisfaction as to what you mean. 



Mr. Hope. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? 



Mr. CooLEY. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Hope. On that point I have always had a lot of trouble in 

 understanding just v.hat was intended in the Aiken bill because I got 

 the impression from what you have said and from what others have 

 said that you expected flexible price supports to influence the quantity 

 of the crop that might be planted and ])r()duced. Yet in the Aiken 

 bill the provision under which you would put into eft'ect the formula 

 which determines what the price supports shall be, is not determined 

 until just before the beginning of the marketing year. 



How any farmer can be expected to decide whether the price is 

 going to be profitable or unprofitable and thus chart his course when 

 he does not have that information before he plants his crop is some- 

 thing I have not been able to figure out. It has always been a puzzle 

 to me why that provision was placed in the Aiken bill in that form. 



Mr. Kline. The bill does provide that any acreage allotment shall 

 be put into effect prior to the planting season. It also provides that 

 the marketing quota be voted, for instance, on cotton in the fall, and 

 that it be effective the next year. 



We could go back further, I sup})ose. but that seems about as early 

 us one can get together all the most pertinent facts and is about as 

 fair, we think, as you can be to the farmer. 



Before the planting season he has only certain alternatives. There 

 are areas that are one-crop areas because of climate or conditions 

 of some sort where it is rather difficult to change. There are other 

 areas where you can have a vast number of different aj^proaches to the 

 use of your land. 



Mr. Hope. What you are saying is tliat you are going to regulate 

 it by giving the man acreage allotments and marketing quotas. 



Why can you not advise him what the ]n-ice is o:oing to be at the 

 same time that you give him acreage allotments and marketing quotas 

 instead of waiting until the beginning of tlie marketing year, wliich 

 is just at the time of harvest, rather than before the planting time. 



That is the thing about this bill that has always been so mysterious 

 to me, why you do not give him the price before he plants the crop. 



Mr. Kline. You mean why we do not put in some forward pricing 

 provisions with various arrangements for deciding what they are to 



