HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AURICULTURE. 175 
that looks a little like blue grass. It is a natural grass all over the 
eastern part of the country. I would sow redtop and Kentucky 
blue grass and white clover out there, and fertilize it, and if you fer- 
tilize it and give it plenty of water, you will get along. 
Mr. Bowrs. I asked you a question in reference to alfalfa and the 
markets in the South, and did not catch your answer to that. 
Mr. Spitiman. That is one point I tried to make a while ago in con- 
nection with studying the hay problem. I meet this qnestion more 
than any other when I am preaching to the farme:s through the South. 
I tell them to grow alfalfa, and they say, ‘‘ What are you going to do 
with the hay?” I say, ‘‘ Feed it to stock.” ‘* We have got no stock; 
we do not know how many times to feed a day, a ton or a handful; 
we want to grow something that we can sell.” Hay is a bulky thin 
and can not be sent far to market, the freight rates are so high; add 
then, again, $10 a ton is only half a cent a pound. When you pay 
another half a cent a pound for freight you have doubled the price of 
hay at once. If we can get, some method in which we can compress 
the hay of 400 pounds in ihe size of 100 or 150 pounds we can get greatly 
reduced rates. 
Mr. Bows. Are freight rates based on weight? 
Mr. Sprtyman. Weight and volume both. There are five or six 
classes of things of different prices. They are classified according to 
value and volume, the more valuable things paying the higher rates, 
and the less valuable things paying a lower rate. More bulky things 
pay a higher rate because they occupy more space. 
Mr. Bowrz. Often it is raised every year? 
Mr. Sprtiman. Yes. 
We are preaching that, and hay, and live stock. It takes time to 
do that and they learn to grow the hay much quicker than they can 
learn to utilize the hay. e want to help them every way we can to 
make a market for their products. We are laying out a campaign of 
work this winter to get those people to utilize the hay on their own 
farms, to feed the hay and make manure of it and put it back on the 
land. We are working on those problems as hard as we can with the 
small amount of money we have on hand. 
Mr. Bowrz. Are you doing any work on fiber plants? 
Mr. Sermuman. Not in my office; in Mr. Coville’s office. 
Mr. Wricut. Up with us the farmers are using cotton-seed meal. 
Mr. Sprttman. I am doing some work with that as a feed for live 
stock. 
Mr. Wricut. What are the comparative merits of that with corn? 
Mr. Sprriman. That depends altogether on the kind of hay you 
feed it with. If you are feeding such things as timothy hay, the cot- 
ton seed is valuable. Alfalfa hay is extremly rich in nitrogen, and 
you want to feed something that 1s poorer in nitroge:: in order to even 
itup. It needs to be fed with nonnitrogenous things, such as corn- 
fodder, and mixed with timothy. 
Mr. Brooks. Have you said anything about what the Department 
is doing with regard to finishing foods for cattle? 
Mr. Sprtiman. I spoke of that when you were out. 
Mr. Bown. I have here some resolutions passed by the Grain 
Dealers’ National Association, protesting against the supervision of 
inspection of grain by the National Government. Does that come in 
your Bureau ? 
