THE FARM LAND 69 



paying artificially high prices for surpluses. The Agricultural 

 Adjustment Administration, on the other hand, reduced the 

 surplus by paying the farmers to do it. This was one of the 

 chief reasons this act succeeded as well as it did in reducing 

 crops. Another reason for farmer cooperation with the Agri- 

 cultural Adjustment Administration program was the fact that 

 paid-for crop reduction caused higher farm prices. The com 

 mercial farmer who needed every bushel of his cash crop in order 

 to pay his annual expenses, could afford to reduce this crop 

 only when the crop reduction did not mean income reduction. 



Whether or not this law would have solved the agricultural 

 problem will never be known. The Supreme Court in 1936 

 decided that the basic prop of the Agricultural Adjustment 

 Administration was unconstitutional. This was the processing 

 tax. The processing tax was a tax levied by the government on 

 all manufacturers who made raw agricultural products into 

 finished goods. This meant that the millers who ground wheat 

 to make flour, or the textile factories which spun cotton into 

 cloth for shirts had to pay a tax on the raw wheat and cotton 

 they used. This tax provided the money with which to pay 

 the farmers for reducing their crops. The Supreme Court ruled 

 that such a tax was illegal. Thus this most notable use of taxing 

 power of government to aid the farmers ended. 



Another thing which prevented an accurate test of the Triple 

 A crop reduction program was the severe drought in 1934-36. 

 This made the crop reduction efforts of the Triple A seem puny. 

 During those weeks of relentless burning sun, thousands of 

 acres of wheat wilted and died. This drought pointed out one 

 serious flaw in the Triple A program. That flaw was the pos- 

 sibility of weather destroying so much of the reduced crops 

 that there would be a shortage. 



Agricultural Adjustment Acts in 1937 and 1938 tried to get 

 around this possibility by what is known as the "ever-normal 

 granary" plan. This law provided that the Secretary of Agri- 



