716 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



that would put in a restricted acreage, whether it be under the apphca- 

 tion of the old law or of the two laws of 1938 and 1948. 



It is hard to adjust your farming operations on July 1 or July 15, 

 as has been indicated that the Secretary of Agriculture may decide 

 to do, and it becomes a vital problem to your committee and we appeal 

 to your committee to carefully look over the law as it would be handed 

 down to the counties and as the acreages would be applied. And from 

 observation, neither in western Kansas nor eastern Colorado do we 

 think that the old 10-year period or 10-year average will apply. We 

 have to keep abreast of the times, and it is rather interesting to look 

 at the break-down of all of your wheat-producing States and apply 

 that 10-year average and then apply the 5-year average and apply the 

 3-year average. And from the standpoint of observation, I think 

 there is going to have to be a happy medium hit that the present law 

 does not give us; or at least there should be a better interpretation of 

 its application. 



Mr. Pace. What is your happy medium? 



Mr. Brown. I think, from just observing here that a happy medium 

 to the old and the new wheat producers would be to take about a 3-year 

 average, the years 1946, 1947, and 1948, and, of course, go up on the 

 same scale if we continue the program and take this year, 1949, next 



I do not think it should be cut out, because farming is a business. 

 Most of these hearing pertain to what we call the commercial wheat 

 producer, and he has got to be given a chance, but the new operator 

 has to have as good a chance as the other, and you have to hit a happy 

 medium. Maybe you cannot give him as much, but you should not 

 take it all away from him. 



Mr. Hope. Are you a new producer, Mr. Brown? 



Mr. Brown. No. I had better not tell you what my business is, 

 because the boys said I would get cross-questioned, but I am going 

 to tell you, anyway. 



I am vice president and general manager of the John W. Balkman 

 Farms Co., located in the three States of Oklahoma, Kansas, and 

 Colorado. We have 280,000 acres of wheat land, and we rent it 

 out to small farmers. We have 700 tenants scattered in the three 

 States. 



Mr. Hope. Pardon my interrupting you, Mr. Brown, but your 

 operations are all carried out on what are considered as family-sized, 

 family-type farms in that area? 



Mr. Brown. In that area. 



Mr. Sutton. Of 4,000 acres each? 



Mr. Brown. Well, we would cut the average lower than that a 

 little. 



Mr. Hope. It is not all in wheat, of course? 



Mr. Brown. It is not all in wheat; it is summer fallow. 



Mr. Pace. Let me talk to you a minute. This is a complicated 

 problem you have. Cotton has the same problem, and I presume 

 corn has the same problem pretty much, and it seems to me our job 

 here, as best we can, is to be fair, as fair as we can, to all of the wheat 

 producers and all of the cotton producers. 



I think there ought to be a general agreement that the production 

 of cotton, wheat, and other commodities during the war period was 

 abnormal and that this, in some cases at the request of the Govern- 



