758 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Second. To consider the latest administration proposals as set up 

 in the current program of the Secretary of Agriculture. 



Third. To answer the questions listed by Chairman Pace relative 

 to the use ot Government support for the bheep industry. 



As fundamental to this consideration, we ask you to establish in 

 your minds a clear distinction between an industry such as ours which 

 is important to the country but currently m deficiency production and 

 those other industries involved in your program whicli are in imminent 

 danger of oversupply. Moreover, there is no prospect for an increase 

 in sheep production in the foreseeable future, and this must be con- 

 sidered in the light of the statements by economists. Government 

 investigators and defense authorities that a minimum industry which 

 would be desu'able here would be one capable of producing not the 

 current 233,924,000 pounds of wool, but at least 360,000,000 pounds of 

 shorn wool. 



The very natural question arises, "How did we get that way?" 

 Why is the sheep industry important to the country and why has it 

 declined in volume during the time when other industries have 

 increased? 



If all the land in the United States were like your garden and there 

 were other fabrics with the same qualities as wool it might be hard to 

 justify a sheep industry. But neither of those statements are true. 

 The vast western ranges comprise 800,000,000 acres. About 90 

 percent of this area is usable mainly for grazing purposes. This 

 can be made useful to humanity only through the medium of cattle or 

 sheep. Since much of this area is not profitable for cattle production, 

 it follows that sheep alone can gather and convert its resources into 

 usable products. A similar condition in lesser extent exists in every 

 State. In the Middle West and East and South there are native 

 forages and crops, both planted and volunteer which only sheep can 

 harvest efficiently. Now bring into your thinking the fact that less 

 than 5 percent of lamb m.eat consumed in the United States has been 

 produced from grain and 95 percent from pasture and roughage and 

 you are forced to the conclusion that a sheep industry of considerable 

 extent is necessary, if for nothing else, merely to prevent extensive 

 waste in our agricidtural economy. 



Then consider wool. I do not need to tell this committee that wool 

 is absorbent, elastic, warm in winter, cool in summer, and so forth, 

 and that no other fabric, synthetic or otherwise, has these items so 

 important to health to as great a degree as wool. Add to this picture 

 the fact that modern science has largely eliminated the few old-time 

 objections to wool use and it is easy to see why our people in greatlj/ 

 increasing numbers, as well as our Ai'my and Navy purchasing 

 departments, are insisting on wool as a basis for much of their 

 clothing. 



Now what has caused the recent fading out of the sheep industry? 

 This is the most important information which we who have been 

 through actual sheep operations of the last three decades can give to 

 you who are planning the set-up for the future. This rise in sheep 

 population from 1910 to the maximum of 48,000,000 in 1942 was 

 accomplished under the following pertinent conditions: 



1. A. tariff which was intended to, and within reasonable limits did, 

 equalize the cost of production of wool here with that in other wool- 

 producing countries that compete for our wool market, and 



