706 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



bunch of vegetables to market to get some cash, we do not tell the 

 purchaser what is fair or what he is to pay for that. He tells us what 

 he will give us. And when we want to take back a sack of feed we 

 do not say what we will pay. He tells us what we are to give him for 

 that sack of feed. 



Now, the farmers are in a very peculiar situation in this country, 

 and I suppose everywhere else under that set-up, and we do not want 

 any farm program set up that will tend to drive the farmers down to 

 the position of semiserfs. He has got to be kept as independent as 

 possible, with a chance to make a living, and I mean a chance to make 

 a living. 



The variable price program will not regulate or control production, 

 for the reason that the farmer must make a living, and therefore if you 

 cut his margin of profit down it means that you are compelling him, 

 if he has the right to do so, to put out more acres. 



I am right up against that problem right now in the matter of sum- 

 mer fallowing. I have a separate quarter section of land in another 

 county from which I live, and in that county it is advisable to summer 

 fallow every other year. I recently purchased the land, and this year 

 I am summer fallowing all of it, and the board tells me that I will 

 probably have 42 acres that I can put out of that quarter section of 

 land, and I cannot farm that land on that basis; I will go broke, just as 

 sure as shooting, I will go broke. 



Now what am I going to be able to do? I am going to have to see if 

 I can possibly borrow money, go out there and buy another quarter 

 section or two quarter sections of land so that I can afford to cultivate 

 the field of the size that is reasonable to cultivate. It is expensive to 

 move machinery, and you cannot operate a small field economically 

 on that amount of acreage. So that maybe I can take 80 acres or 

 maybe 100 acres of the other quarter section and move my machinery 

 in there and cultivate it. It is expensive to get at it, but that is what 

 I will have to do. 



I am, therefore, opposed to any flexible price support program. 

 Now, if you cut me down to a small margin I will have to raise more 

 wheat. Henry Ford taught us that years ago, you will remember, 

 when he said let us cut the price of cars and sell more cars with a 

 smaller margin, that he would make just as much if not more money. 



Now, cut me down on the price of wheat so that I can barely make 

 a small profit on a bushel of wheat, in order for me and my family to 

 live I will have to go out and increase my acreage, increase my bushel- 

 age, and there is no question about that. That is why the flexible 

 program will not control production. 



We have got to have controls, of course, and we are in favor of 

 controls. But we want controls with the minimum of regimentation. 

 Yes, let us put this in the hands so it will come down from the Secretary 

 of Agriculture, down to the States, down to the counties and to the 

 farmers and let us find out what is possible here for us to do in order 

 to live; that ought always to be taken into consideration. 



Now we feel that the present farm program, not the Aiken bill, the 

 Aiken law, but the present farm program that was operating this 

 year, this present year, is fair and reasonable. We want a fixed parity 

 price, a high price, and if it must be 90 percent let us leave it at 90 

 percent, and the farmer will take the 90-percent chance along with his 

 brothers in making a living. 



