664 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



braska, aixd we also have it in Texas. We have boys at the present 

 time who have been following that same practice of summer fallowing. 



But if we have acreage allotment and acreage reduction our boys 

 right there in Texas are going to be hurt just as bad as the boys in 

 Washington and Oregon, possibly not so much, because there are 

 some fellows, that because they have been continuing crops planted in 

 wheat, but there are other instances where they have not had acreage 

 allotment before. 



I had one section of land that had a 70-acre acreage allotment basis; 

 640 acres that had a 70-acre wheat basis, and two other sections that 

 had 275-acre wheat base, but since that time, with the controls lifted, 

 and the demand so heavy, I have planted that section 100 percent to 

 wheat, with the hope of building up the acreage base possibly, but on 

 the other, I have made as much wheat per acre on land, fallow wheat, 

 planted continuously, as I have on some of the summer-fallow. 



But we have been hurt, to a certain extent, through summer 

 fallowing, and that is, you take the land which is cleaned off, and you 

 work it all summer and nothing is grown on it, and then in the fall, if 

 you do not get rain which you must have to get the wheat up, often the 

 dust will begin to blow and you have to work it thi'ough the winter 

 just to keep it from blowing away. Then you also have the loss of 

 the crop. 



But we are willing to take that chance, and as I say, we are all going 

 to have to make a sacrifice in some way and we have to look at 

 this situation at this time with that in view. We cannot look at it 

 from the selfish standpoint ; we are all going to have to take a rap one 

 way or another, and the way the surpluses are building up there is no 

 way in the world that I can see how the Treasury of the United States 

 can support this price and keep it up, and at the same time have these 

 surpluses piling up. 



If we were permitted to harvest this wheat, the excess acreage, and 

 put it in the bin and feed it to cattle and livestock, I say that I think 

 that would be a good approach, but we would be in competition with 

 the men who are making their living feeding cattle or producing corn. 



Then on the other hand, the boys out here that are summer fallowing 

 and working this land in the last few years I think probably have 

 just built up an acreage, and possibly they need to give the matter 

 some consideration. We think the boys plan to be fair, which every- 

 body is, and we believe that if we could take a base, of say, a 10-year 

 period, using the last 5 years, excluding 1949, and divide that by five; 

 and then take the next 5 years back, divide that by five, and take the 

 two averages, put them together and divide that by two, and then 

 use as the allotted acreage those figures. 



I know that it is going to be tough on some fellows and it is going 

 to be tougher on some than others, but I know also it is going to hurt 

 me personally, but I am willing to take the rap, because we are all 

 going to have to do it one way or the other. 



Now while we are definitely in favor of the 90-percent-of-parity 

 support, we also want to have some rigid acreage controls and market- 

 ing quotas if necessary. I would like to see first the acreage control 

 tried without marketing quotas. But if it cannot be handled that 

 way, then we should have marketing quotas, and then provide a 

 penalty of some kind, a very heavy penalty should be imposed upon 

 the man who does not comply, and who produces the surplus wheat. 



1 



