GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 649 



Mr. Hill. You would not have any cut on the 500 acres that you 

 did not crop? 



Mr. Taylor. No; because I have no crop. That would be in crop 

 next year. And we have the expense of farmmg- that. 



Mr. Hill. Are you going to the expense of farming 1 ,000 acres all 

 the time, then? 



Mr. Taylor. That is right. 



Mr. Hill. To get 



Mr. Taylor. To get 500 acres of wheat in. 



Mr. Hill. Do you make any money that way? 



Mr. Taylor. V\ e have been able to in the long run. A few years 

 have been very bad. 



Mr. Hill. How do you make any money farming 1,000 acres and 

 only putting in 500 acres to crop? 



Mr. Taylor. When I was here in 1941, then the situation was 

 different; then the price was very low, and we were concerned then 

 in getting the price up. The price is up now, and we are concerned 

 in keeping it at a fair level. The way I make money — we have 

 found by experience that if we crop all of the land each 3"ear, our 

 production is much less per acre, with two costs of seeding and two 

 costs of harvesting, and that we are money ahead if we summer-fallow 

 and conserve the moisture and the fertility and have a crop on half 

 of our land every other year. 



Mr. Hill. How does that afl'ect the land? 



Mr. Taylor. It conserves moisture. The experts in the experiment 

 station have told us recently that continuous summer-fallowing is 

 hard on the land, as it produces sort of a burning action on the organic 

 material, but our experience up to the present tim.e has been that 

 it does conserve the fertility and moisture for that crop. But just 

 at this time we are beginning to get to the point where we have to 

 apply a little nitrogen in order to keep up the balance. 



Mr. Hill. In the summerf-allowing of this land, does that enable 

 you to use a larger and more efficient type of farm equipment in this 

 wheat growing? 



Mr. Taylor. Compared with diversified sections and other methods 

 of farming, it is more extensive. We depend entirely on the use of 

 large machinery and ec|uipment. That is also true in some other 

 areas, particularly in the Great Plains area. 



Mr. Hill. What do }^ou take off of the soil in wheat growing? In 

 the East, back here, they even cut the wheat as low as they can in 

 order to get all of the straw. 



Mr. Taylor. We run the header at a level that will get all of the 

 wheat but as little of the straw as possible. 



Mr. Hill. You do not use a combine? 



Mr. Taylor. Yes; w^e use a combine. The header is part of the 

 combine. 



Mr. Hill. You mean the combine is a header? 



Mr. Taylor. No; the combine has a header on it. 



Mr. Hill. I see some of the members laughing, but I know about 

 combines, and I just want to bring this out because a lot of us do not 

 know the difference between a binder and a combine and do not know 

 the difference between the old header that we used to have. I have 

 worked on them, and I know. 



