THE FARM LAND 71 



crops that produce the most troublesome surpluses. This plan 

 also had the object of diversifying farm crops, thus getting away 

 from the basic mistake of one-crop farming. 



By midsummer of 1938, headlines like this were appearing 

 in the newspapers. "Huge Wheat Crop Tests AAA Policies. 

 The Puzzle Is How Many Bushels Can Be Kept Off the Market 

 To Avoid Price Crash. Effort To Push Exports." 67 The prob 

 lem suggested by this headline can be put down simply as a 

 problem in addition. That problem would look like this: 



Wheat Taken Out of the Mar\et by the Agricultural 

 Adjustment Act 



100,000,000 bushels through wheat loans 

 30,000,000 crop insurance 



25,000,000 " to be bought by the government to feed 



the needy 



650,000,000 for domestic consumption 



805,000,000 " total needed 



1,167,000,000 " in 1938 crop (including 200,000,000 



bushels left from previous year) 

 805,000,000 " needed 

 362,000,000 " surplus 



There were 362,000,000 bushels more wheat than could be 

 taken care of by domestic consumption and the Triple A. That 

 explains the last sentence in the headline, "Effort To Push 

 Exports." The only way for the government to get rid of that 

 wheat was by exporting it. But export markets to absorb such 

 a large surplus are hard to find today. 



A few days before this headline about wheat appeared in 

 the newspaper, the following dispatch from Rome was printed: 

 "June 16. The government today suspended regulations calling 

 for the use of 20 per cent corn flour in bread and issued a sub' 



67 New ror\ Times, July 24, 1938. 



