736 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



doing it all with the same type of machinery and the same amount of 

 help that he has always had. Now he sees coming a banker and a 

 druggist and a lawyer and a promoter from Kansas or Nebraska into 

 the country right next to him and plowing up acre after acre. 



The Department of Agriculture comes along and reduces this farmer 

 who has always had that same average of acreage every year the same 

 percentages as the "suitcase" wheat grower. 



Mr. Walker. We are cautioning committees all the way down the 

 line to see that this old steady producer is not penalized in his allot- 

 ment because of this recent plow-up by the "suitcase" farmer, so to 

 speak. 



Mr. Hill. How in the world are you going to do that? 



Mr. Albert. Will you yield to me' 



Mr. Hill. Yes. 



Mr. Albert. As long as there is a variation between farm and State 

 allotments, how are you really going to protect the old grower in a 

 given State where the acreage allotment has been cut? 



Mr. Walker. You cannot just nail it down and say that every 

 old producer is going to be strictly protected, but at the State level, 

 when county allotments are finally determined, adjustments for this 

 trend increase in that State can be made. 



At the county level we provide a procedure for the county commit- 

 tees to follow in which these producers that are planting from fence 

 to fence or from sod to sod will be adjusted in line with these other 

 producers before their so-called usual acreages are scaled for the county 

 allotment. Somewhere some old producer will be hurt but generally 

 speaking we feel that they will be fairly well protected. At least that 

 is our objective. 



Mr. Albert. The word I get on peanuts, where you have a 5-year 

 base starting 1 year before your farm base starts, and a 3-year base for 

 your farm, which picks up a year after the close of your State base, 

 the counties where they have always grown peanuts are almost as 

 badly hurt as those where the production is relatively new. 



Mr. Hill. That is what the wheat farmer in Colorado is afraid of. 

 We have farmer after farmer that has always had a certain number of 

 acres of wheat in his farm practices. I am speaking of irrigated 

 farms or farms on the border. Now, you come along and whack 

 them off 55 percent. You might as well cut that farmer's throat and 

 arrange a place in the cemetery for him because he is going to go there 

 or some of these PMA people who bother him will. That is bad 

 business. 



Mr. WooLEY. I would like to make one observation in connection 

 with your statement and the statement of Mr. Albert. We have 

 examined the law in company with the Solicitor's office in connection 

 with this wheat problem that is a very dramatically present thing 

 in the case of Kiowa County, Colo. In going over the law, we have 

 tried to use it to the maximum to protect the old grower. In other 

 words, our procedures utilize every bit of latitude we have in the law 

 to protect the old grower against the inroads of the new grower. 



Mr. Hill. Wliere does your old grower end or begin and the new 

 grower quit, what year? 



Mr. Woolley. That is a very serious question, as to what con- 

 stitutes an old grower and what constitutes a new grower, particularly 

 in the dust bowl area. As Mr. Walker has said, our county com- 



