1028 . GENERAL FARM PROGRAM | 



Mr. Sutton. I hope you are right. 



Mr. Rowlands. That is what I think. 



Mr. Sutton. Personally I am for 90 percent parity. But if the 

 Aiken-Hope bill goes into effect January 1, 1950, we will have a 

 program of flexible price supports. You speak of the South; I am 

 from Tennessee ; I am a southerner. I think that our cotton, our corn 

 and our wheat should have 90 percent parity. If we have flexible 

 price support then cotton will go down to 60 percent parity. 



Mr. Rowlands. Just as a farmer from Mississippi, my idea is that 

 it will send our economy into a tailspin if you do not protect agricul- 

 ture, because it is the basic activity of this Nation. If you do not 

 produce, and the farmer does not get his share, it aft'ects all the 

 strata in our economy. 



Mr. Sutton. I agree with you 100 percent. But what I am think- 

 ing is, Is it right for us to single out tung nuts and support them at 90 

 percent when we do not support corn and cotton or wheat? 



Mr. Rowlands. I should say not. But we are asking for parity 

 now because we are in such a terrible condition. If this goes on an- 

 other year, we are destroyed. 



Mr. Sutton. I agree with you 100 percent, but so will the corn 

 grower and so will the cotton grower and others be destroyed. 



Mr. HoEVEN. In this proposed legislation, H. R. 29, how did you 

 happen to arrive at the base period January 1936 to December 1940? 

 Is that the period of the highest market price? 



Mr. RoY\^LANDS. No; unfortunately that was the lowest. But I 

 should like to ask Mr. Colmer to answer that, if he will. 



Mr. CoLMER. Mr. Hoeven, there is no historical base period that 

 we can arrive at for tung. Frankly, I picked those figures out of the 

 thin air as a working basis. We could not go back to the old base 

 period prior to World War I, so we had to have something, and this 

 period was taken purely as a working base. 



Mr. HoEVEN. Why did you not pick the last 5 years prior to 1949? 



Mr. CoLMER. Perhaps 1 should have. The only answer is that I 

 did not. 



Mr. HoEVEN. In other words, the figures are just arbitrary; there 

 is no real basis for them. One 5-year period would be as good as 

 another. 



Mr. CoLMER. Some would be much higher than the one I took as 

 Air. Rowlands has pointed out. 



Mr. HoEVEN. In other words, you have no historical base for this? 



Mr. CoLMER. Unfortunately, none. 



Mr. Rowlands. Unfortunately, Mr. Colmer picked one of the low- 

 est periods. 



Mr. Albert. Is the tung oil that comes from China produced in 

 the area that is now under Communist control and occupation? 



Mr. Rowlands. I understand — I have not kept track in the last 

 few days — that the Communists are engulfing the Yangtse River. 



Mr. Albert. It does come from the Yangtse? 



Mr. Rowlands. Yes, sir; most of the oil comes down the river. 

 Chinese tung trees grow all over China. There are 26 dift'erent varie- 

 ties, as I understand. But this particular type, the cluster type gives 

 the best oil and it comes from up the river. Most of it comes down 

 the Yangtse River into Nanking, then goes to Hankow and then over 

 here. 



