650 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



What I would like you to tell this committee is, when you harvest 

 wheat, what have you taken off the ground. 



Mr. Taylor. All I have taken off is the wheat kernel. 



Mr. Hill. What is done with all the rest of it? 



Mr. Taylor. The straw that is cut with the head goes through 

 the machine and is returned to the ground by means of a straw 

 scatterer which spreads it out so that it does not leave it in rows. 

 We like to leave it there to turn back into the ground to build up 

 the organic content. But we do have that problem of excessive straw 

 which, in some cases, is more than we can handle. 



Mr. Hill. Tell the committee what it does if you have rain on 

 that soil where you continuously, let us say, put the straw back into 

 the soil. 



Mr. Taylor. Where we have continually put the straw back into 

 the soil, that does build up the organic content and increases the 

 absorptive powers of the soil so that it will more readUy absorb the 

 rain as it falls on it. In the particular area where I farm, the tendency 

 is to destroy that straw by burning. Because of the excessive amount 

 of straw, it is almost impossible to handle and get a good seed bed. 

 We are working on that thing through the development of equipment 

 that will handle the so-called trashy fallow, and some farmers are 

 cutting lower with the combine than they normally would, trying to 

 get a stand of stubble of a shorter length that can be handled and 

 plowed under. 



Mr. Hill. You plow with what? 



Mr. Taylor. In my area, we use a moldboard plow. In the lighter 

 land areas, we use different types of equipment, like discs, duck foots^ 

 and implements of that nature. They find that is very beneficial in 

 lessening erosion and does not affect the yields. 



Mr. Hill. You do not use discs at all? 



Mr. Taylor. We do not. Some do disc the stubble m the fall and 

 chop it up and then use the moldboard plow in the spring. 



Mr. Hill. On the farms in Colorado they use the disc. 



Mr. Taylor. The disc pulverizes the ground so much it induces 

 erosion. 



Mr. Sutton. Referring to the remarks of my colleague about the 

 combine, I will say, if there is a man on the committee who has not 

 seen a combine, he should not be on this committee. 



Mr. Hill. We have to be careful about those lawyers on this 

 committee. He is the one I am always scared of. 



Mr. Sutton. Talking about summer fallowing, down in my section, 

 we raise lespedeza and alfalfa along with wheat. Right after we cut 

 the wheat, we plant lespendeza and alfalfa. Would that be possible 

 in your district? 



Mr. Taylor. No; because of the limited rainfall. I attempted to 

 seed sweet clover in my growing crop on my farm and hoped to have it 

 to plow down the next spring, but it would not live through the sum- 

 mer. 



Mr. Sutton. In other words, you could not possibly divert those 

 acres to any type of soil builder? 



Mr. Taylor. Not the acres we have in the area where I am. 

 There is a limited strip of land at the base of the mountains, where they 

 have more rainfall, where they can have some success with sweet 

 clover, but that is a very limited area in relation to the total wheat 

 acreage in the Northwest. 



