966 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



advanced from a mechanical standpoint to the point where we are 

 among the most efficient of food producers. I appeal to you on the 

 basis that potato producers have asked voluntarily for this 60 percent 

 basis on which to experiment and I feel the potato industry is entitled 

 to try this experiment. We will subscribe to the consideration that if 

 wheat, cotton, corn, or anything else is willing to go to a 60-percent 

 basis and some type of payment, we will go along with them. But a 

 year ago we asked to have this legislation set up so that we might try 

 this experiment. We feel that the American public perhaps is looking 

 to us. We have been the "whipping boy" for something that we did 

 not set up, a 60-percent potato program. 



Mr. Pace. What about a commodity that does not lend itself to 

 efficiency of production comparable with potatoes? Do you think 

 they should be put down at the same support level? 



Mr. WiCKHAM. Mr. Chairman, I will only say that when I go home 

 to my farm and look at it, I humbly thank God that I am producing 

 a commodity which is perishable, and the slate is wiped clean every 

 year. I do not see how some of these things can be made to work in 

 commodities which can be stored from year to year. We, the potato 

 industry, believe the plan can be worked out in a perishable 

 commodity. 



We believe we are entitled to an opportunity to try to work this out. 

 If it does work, the Treasury of the United States stands to benefit. 

 Potato production all over the country stands to benefit. At least 

 we have a support which will in a measure guarantee us against very 

 serious loss, and of course you know that som.e of us are producing 

 potatoes like Henr3=^ Ford produces automobiles. It is cheap potatoes, 

 it is cheap food which the country wants. 



Mr. Pace. Where would you be if Congress failed to appropriate 

 the m.oney to make the payments? 



Mr. WiCKHAM. I am not prepared to answer that question. There 

 are a great many of oin' farmers who perhaps feel that their business 

 is raising potatoes and that in a measure they are willing to accept a 

 great many risks in the line of marketing their crops. 



Mr. Pace. Do you think the reduction to 60 percent of parity would 

 be sufficient control to keep the acreage down? 



Mr. WiCKHAM. I rather question whether that will happen the first 

 vear, but I do think that over a period of not more than 3 years it will 

 be amply sufficient to keep the production down. 



Mr. Pace. And you do not want any control program? 



Mr, WiCKHAM. I believe we have to have, at least at this time, an 

 acreage-control program., but it is relatively unimportant so long as 

 we keep that support price down. The minute the support price 

 becomes high, you get great acreages, and to me that is a terrible 

 thing to see. 



Mr. Pace. It has been said to me that 60 percent of parity, with the 

 increased efficiency in production and advanced fertilization and 

 methods of combating insects and disease, is a pretty good price. Is 

 that true, or not? 



Mr. WiCKHAM. Sixty percent of parity represents sufficiently below 

 the historical price of potatoes, but as you say, that is not the factor. 

 I will say that with the advent of combines in the wheat business, with 

 the advent of certain types of farming in the cotton industry in 

 California, with the advent of hybrid corn in the Corn Belt, we are not 



