1078 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



with competition gradually getting into the picture from the stand- 

 point of the consumers, that mohair will be back in the market before 

 so very long. So it is for that reason that we feel c|uite justified in 

 appearing before the committee and requesting that mohair be given 

 the same kind of treatment, no better, and certainly no less than is 

 given to all other agricultural products, such as wool, for example. 

 Mohair is a double cousin to wool. It has always been treated as 

 wool. Mohair is established in the Department of' Agriculture in 

 connection with research and all of those things, as wool. Mohair 

 is never mentioned but the wool program includes certain appropria- 

 tions that are allocated each year by the Department for mohair 

 research purposes. So it always has been considered as a part of the 

 wool program in these various respects. 



Mr. Pace. It is frequently included in the definition of wool. 



Mr. Fisher. That is true, even Webster's dictionary does that. 



Mr. PoAGE. The law does not include it, and you would like for us 

 to include it in the legal definition of wool? 



Mr. -Fisher. That is right. It does not include it in the legal 

 definition. 



Mr. Chairman, I was referring to the historical position of mohair 

 in its treatment similar to that of wool in the past in various respects, 

 and I was just referring to the Wool Products Labeling Act, as an 

 example, which was passed in 1939. I have a copy of that act before 

 me, and it will be noted that in section 2, subsection (b), the definition 

 of wool is there given, part of which is as follows : 



The term "wool" means the fiber from the fleece of the sheep or lamb, or hair 

 of the Angora goat. 



So that it has been the established policy and practice in the past 

 to always treat mohair as wool with respect to these various legislative 

 matters that have come up, and as I said before, it would have been so 

 treated with wool in the past, as the gentleman from Utah well knows, 

 who has taken quite a part in the interest of the wool growers in the 

 past, except for the fact that mohah was selling fairly well, and we did 

 not want to burden the Government with that problem unnecessarily. 



I might point, too, in passing to the fact that in 1938 and 1939 when 

 the Commodity Credit Corporation set up a nonrecourse load program 

 and allocated $50,000,000 for wool at the same time $10,000,000 was 

 allocated for mohair under the same program, it was not used, but 

 allocated, and I mention those only to illustrate the fact that mohair 

 has always been considered hand in hand with wool. 



In the interests of brevity, unless there is some question that the 

 committee wishes to ask me, I am through. 



Mr. Pace. Mr. Fisher, under the Agricultural Act of 1948, other- 

 wise known as the Aiken bill, there is a provision saying that the price 

 of wool shall be supported at such level, not in excess of 90 percent or 

 60 percent of the parity price of January 1, as the Secretary may 

 consider necessary, in order to encourage the annual production of 

 approximately 360,000,000 pounds of shorn wool, what you recom- 

 mend to the committee is that the definition of wool be made to cover 

 mohair, to come within the provisions of this provision? 



Mr. Fisher. That is correct. That is our request, that the defini- 

 tion of wool as used in the agricultural program be defined to include 

 wool just as it was included in the definition of wool as applied to the 

 Wool Labeling Act. 



