GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 663 



STATEMENT OF CARL KUPER, REPRESENTING TEXAS WHEAT 



AREA 



Mr. Pace. We will hear next from Mr. Carl Kuper, representing 

 the Texas wheat area. 



Mr. WoRLEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like for the record to also 

 show there is present at the hearing Mr. R. C. Buckles, of Stratford; 

 Mr. W. H. Upchurch, of Canyon; Mr. Vern Reynolds, of Dalhart, 

 and Mr. R. V. Converse, of Spearman. 



Mr. Pace. We are delighted to have these gentlemen present, and 

 may I add that we are delighted to have the gentlemen from Texas, 

 Mr. Worley, assist us in working out these problems. The gentle- 

 man from Texas is a very distinguished and hard-working member of 

 the committee. 



Mr. Worley. Be sure that that gets into the record. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Kuper, we will be glad to hear you at this time. 



Mr. Kuper. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, I 

 represent the High Plains Wheat Producers Association, of the Pan- 

 handle of Texas. I also am just a plain dirt farmer. I farm several 

 thousand acres of land in the Panhandle. I came there in 1929, in 

 the fall of 1929, and bought a little section of land, and went through 

 all of the dust storms, the depression, and went broke. Then things 

 got worse, and I was worse than broke, and if it had not been for the 

 triple A payments and the feed loans and so forth, we never could 

 have survived. 



I have driven a tractor in the fields when the dust was blowing 

 so hard that you could hardly see where you were going, the direction 

 you were going, trying to save the soil. 



We also went through a period there, from 1933 through 1937, over 

 5 years, when we had to buy seed, did not even pull a combine out 

 of the field, and never harvested a grain. 



Since that time things have changed. And what I have to say is 

 that what I have made since then I have made it myself, and never 

 had a dime giv^ to me that I know of. And one of the things I 

 would say first is that we do nothing as big wheat farmers that would 

 impose any penalty nor that would hurt the little farmer. There is 

 room for the farmer who has a section, or 100 acres, or even 20 acres. 

 We want the small farmer to have the very best consideration. 



But what we are vitally concerned with is the boys which actually 

 produce the surplus, and I consider myself one of them. We can go 

 along here and have this plan or this idea but we are going to have to 

 take selfish motives out in order to get the job done. Of course there 

 are a lot of things that I would Hke to do, selfishly; I might go along, 

 leave a part of my land out, and plant it in milo maize, go right in 

 competition with the corn farmer. But I consider that if I did that 

 that would not help this program a bit. And, we think that the best 

 thing to do would be to get a certain percentage of this land out of 

 production, one way or the other, and notably, out of the production 

 of grain, and possibly if we need to increase the meat production to a 

 certain extent, we could plant the land, possibly, in legumes, or plant 

 it in something that would permit of summer fallowing. 



I am in deep sjnnpathy with the fellows from Washington and 

 Oregon who are engaged in wheat farming. We also have a similar 

 situation in eastern Colorado, and we have it in Kansas and in Ne- 



