GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 591 



mercial, then it should be as flexible as possible. It is one of those 

 devices where there seems to be no no way to avoid considerable admin- 

 istrative discretion. The administration can be much more refined 

 than it has been. The areas which become eligible for benefits under 

 commercial-area provisions ought to be admitted to the commercial 

 area as rapidly as they become elegible. There should not be a bag, 

 as in the case of Tennessee's dissatisfaction with being excluded from 

 the commercial corn area, which we think is legitimate. 



Again, it goes back partly to the question of voluntary versus en- 

 forced control of production. There again we think it might be pos- 

 sible to do away with such devices if we adopted an interchangeable 

 commodity unit. 



Mr. Hope. In the past, while there has been no commercial or non- 

 commercial wheat area, there has been a distinction made that some- 

 what roughly corresponded to that, in that there were exemptions, as 

 far as bushels was concerned. I do not remember whether it was 200 

 bushels or 300 bushels which was exempt from marketing quotas. 

 It seems to me that serves about the same purpose. 



As a matter of fact, I cannot see any real distinction between com- 

 merical and noncommercial wheat areas, because most of your wheat 

 in every area gets into some commercial course. Wheat is produced 

 primarily for human food, and some wheat in every area gets into that 

 course of commerce. 



On the other hand, in every area there is also some wheat fed. It 

 is a different situation than you have in the case of corn, where you 

 have your commercial area where some of the corn gets into commerce, 

 and in your noncommercial areas most of it is fed and produced solely 

 for local feed. I have not been able to convince myself that there is 

 any particular merit in the idea of a commercial wheat area. It seems 

 to me it would be much more difficult to administer if you had one 

 than in the case of the commercial corn area. 



Mr. Smith. We would agree with that. 



Mr. Hope. Wheat in the noncommercial areas will be mostly sold on 

 the markets. 



Mr. Smith. We would certainly agree with everything you have 

 said. The only place where you would have to begin to question it, 

 I should think, would be if you did not reduce production and you went 

 to a two-price system on wheat and then wheat began to be substituted 

 for other grains for feeding on a wider scale. 



Mr. Hope. Even then I think you still could hardly draw a line 

 and say this area is commercial and this area is noncommercial. I 

 think you would have a problem, and I do not see where you could 

 draw your line. 



Mr. Pace. I am hoping we will move the other way. If we were 

 to treat under our wheat program the way we have been treating the 

 noncommercial area under the corn program, the wheat growers out- 

 side the commercial area would have no vote and would have only 75 

 percent of the support price. 



Mr. Smith. Tliat is right. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Kline, yesterday, tried to justify the commercial corn 

 area because he said that is a great area where corn is fed. I believe 

 there is a greater percentage of the corn produced in Georgia that is 

 fed than there is in Iowa. In fact, I do not know of a single ear of 



