GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 1105 



they can raise enough corn on that old rough 40 that we know ought 

 not to be plowed to help them meet their overhead so they can stay 

 there and keep their kids in school another year. 



But I came directly from a farm to this Congress. I have never 

 known any other home. I never even lived in a little country town. 

 I started in the triple-A program back in the days of the corn-and- 

 work program on the township committee and I worked clear through 

 that program as a member of the county committee; as a wheat in- 

 surance representative I measured wheat and corn. Then I sat on a 

 12-county appeal board and heard 5 or 6 men out of each county who 

 said they did not get a square deal on their wheat and corn allotments. 

 However, our counties only turned up five or six men who objected 

 to the allotments when they were passed. 



Now, if there is a better way than that, I am ready to accept it, 

 but we have got to maintain agricultural buying power. 



There are still 50 percent of our farmers Avho haven't got REA. 

 I am one of them, and 50 percent of the farmers that have got REA 

 haven't got hot and cold water in the bathtub. A lot of us old fellows 

 take a bath in the washtub every Saturday night, whether we need 

 it or not 



Mr. Andresen. That is why you are such a good man. 



Mr. Christopher. Maybe. We will not go into that. We have 

 lots of things which are more iriportant. 



I want to say that the agriciiitunil people of the United States are 

 still the best market that labor and industry have in the world, if they 

 leave us an income so we can be good customers of theirs and pay cash; 

 but the farmer has the power and he will exercise it as a matter of 

 self-defense. When he begins to sink he will raise up and take hold of 

 every industry in the world and pull it down in the hole on top of him. 

 He did it in 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1933, and he will do it again. He 

 will have to do it. It is just like a drowning man catching at a straw. 



Before I forget it, I do want to compliment Mr. Jensen on at least 

 80 percent of the things he said while he was speaking here. At least 80 

 percent of the things he said while he was here were things that I 

 intended to say myself. It is all right that he said them because I 

 will not have to take the time to say them. 



As far as I am concerned, I want to produce on my land anything 

 and everything that will show me a profit. If I can't take the fertility 

 out of my land sell it at a profit, I want to leave it in there. I don't 

 want to mine that fertility out and give it away. It costs me money 

 to put it there. 



There is another thing that I know you gentlemen know, and I 

 hope you will never forget. When a merchant sells goods oft" of the 

 shelves of his store, when he takes his next inventory he compares the 

 inventory he has there on hand at that time with the inventory he 

 had a year previous. We have never considered the farmer doing 

 that. We have so many pounds of phosphate and so many pounds 

 of calcium and so many pounds of potash and so much nitrogen on 

 each acre of soil. If we take 50 bushels of corn crop off of an acre of 

 that soil, it will cost us $12.50 to go to the elevator to buy the plant 

 food that is in that 50 bushels of corn, and yet it is not considered part 

 of that farmer's cost of production. It ought to be, in my opinion it is, 

 and here is the reason: If I have plenty of calcium or apply plenty, I 

 can grow nitrogen, but I can never grow a pound of phosphate; I can 



