I think, here knows-anybody that knows anything about tobaccothat there is a great demand for this tobacco, the nondescript grades, especially cigar filler type, and a few years ago it was bringing 3 cents a pound and now it is bringing 14 cents a pound or better.

Your nondescript grades, a lot of it is N-2's, and most of them are bringing Government support price of N-1 to even higher than that. And if we take this tobacco off the market and do not sell it, we are going to lose a segment of our market. And once we lose it we will lose it because the manufacturers will go elsewhere to get it. And if they go elsewhere to get their tobacco we will lose it and we will never regain it.

I am in favor of trying to gain markets instead of losing markets. And if we go under a poundage program as it is proposed now I am afraid that we are going to lose some of our markets. And that the tobacco that we sell will be the higher priced tobacco-and the lower priced tobacco we will only sell in the event that we do not reach our production.

As I say, I will go back to the fact that if each individual farmer is cut according to the amount of tobacco that he puts in Stabilization, not of the total amount, but of the substandard grades, then I think that we are getting a something that will solve our problem and help solve our problem.

I thank you very much.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you very much.

Our next witness is Mr. Douglas Wiggins, president of the Marion County Farm Bureau.

STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS WIGGINS, PRESIDENT, MARION COUNTY FARM BUREAU, MARION, S.C.

Mr. WIGGINS. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I have thought a great deal about this acreage-poundage thing. I think that they have put a lot of thinking into it, but we farmers have put a lot of time into our programs, trying to make a living. That is what we are interested in, trying to make a living, so that we will get enough to feed our families.

I do not see how this program will help us any. In fact, I think it will hurt us. And instead of reducing the Stabilization of tobacco stocks, instead of doing that, it will put more in the stocks, it looks like to me, I think, if it was passed today. Next year we will have a meeting and we will be in more trouble than we are now. Just like the gentleman before me said, people are not going to sell the cheap tobacco when they have so much that they can sell. They will sell that which they can get the money out of. That is what they want-money.

They have been preaching quality, quantity. The quantity has been there. He will get pounds. He is the big man. The quality man has been producing quality and he will be cut under this bill. In other words, he will have his farm set at a certain price which cannot be raised. And the older man who has got bonds, and in the last few years, due to bad health, has left or let it run down, which they cannot help, because they have become old and are not as active as they were, and they cannot make the crops, they will be

penalized. And the farms that come on the market to be sold are farms that usually are in a rundown state.

And a young man who is trying to get ahead in life is not able to buy one of these high-priced farms with high poundage. He has got to buy a cheap farm and try to work it up.

I know several farms in my county, adjoining farms, that sell hundreds of pounds of tobacco that they have been making. And much of it depends on the man who is farming it and not particularly the land. And if you go on a poundage basis, these farms would be penalized for the rest of the time.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you.

Our next witness is Billie Foxworth, we will be glad to hear from

you.

STATEMENT OF BILLIE FOXWORTH, CONWAY, S.C.

Mr. FOXWORTH. Mr. McMillan, ladies and gentlemen, I just have a few off-the-cuff statements that I would like to make along these lines.

As one gentleman said earlier I am not a public speaker. In fact, I am scared to death right now. If you will bear with me, I would like to say a few things that I have in my mind about this.

I have the honor and the privilege of being from Conway—a farmer in Horry County. And Horry County consists of professional farmers. I mean, our whole economy in Horry County is based on tobacco. We do not have a lot of industries down there with a lot of part-time farmers. We are full-time, 365-day-a-year farmers. As a result, our economy in Horry County has the highest per-acre yield in this State. And since we have the highest in this State I think we have the highest in the country.

We also have our markets which are exceptionally high. In fact, for 7 years Conway itself has led the State as to the percentage that goes into the Stabilization. We have had very little going into the Stabilization from Horry County. And you will find that information most anywhere if you care to check the facts.

Along those same lines we have farmers in Horry County who produce 3,600, 3,700, 3,800 pounds to the acre. These men are going to be cut back. And we have some few farmers that I referred to as part-time farmers that have a low yield. These men are still going to have a low yield. And I do not care what kind of program you have, they are just knocking along, trying to do what they can.

I believe Mr. Williamson earlier said that this new program would destroy the loose leaf program. Quite frankly, I was not in love with it, to start with. I do not see how it could hurt it, for this reason.

I tell my farmers, go ahead, and tie this tobacco, and any old trash that you are growing to have, to throw away, put it on the floor here and we will sell that loose leaf. And there are thousands and thousands of pounds of tobacco that are sold in this state of loose leaf, in that same class, that should have been thrown away.

I have gone into whatever information I have been able to get on this new program and, frankly, other than these real high yielding men, it is not going to affect them too much. Therefore, a man is going to have to sell just about all of the tobacco that he can produce,

except that he will grade that tobacco much better, and the stuff that he now sells, where he can get his pounds, he will throw that away.

I dare say that there is not a man here that if we adopted this new program that it would cover more than 200 pounds of anything that he produces.

Another thing, I am a young man and I hope to be in this tobacco for a long time. We have got to look to the future. You cannot look to just what you are going to do this year or maybe next year.

As all of you know, this program is in bad shape and unless something is done to help us, in a few years we will not have any program at all. So I would like to say in the end that I am very much in favor of this program and I wish that most of you would give it some deep consideration and look into the facts before you start condemning it.

I realize some gentlemen have talked earlier, talking about these low-yielding counties that produce high quality. Well, the same lowyielding counties in the same low-yielding counties could make high quality tobacco and high yields at the same time, because the line is not that narrow.

We have a lot to consider about this program. And I know that a lot of people more or less sit back, and they trust the Government. I think that is one of our national pastimes, to trust the Government, but just because this program was figured out in Washington does not automatically make it all bad. You fellows just look into it and I think that you will find that this program will help you.

Thank you.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you.

Our next witness is Mr. John Monroe Holliday.

STATEMENT OF JOHN MONROE HOLLIDAY, GALIVANTS FERRY, S.C.

Mr. HOLLIDAY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, I am John Monroe Holliday from Galivants Ferry. I do not have a prepared statement.

I am a farmer. I am a member of the Farm Bureau. I am on the board of the Conway chapter.

All of us must remember that we have got just one problem-we have got too much tobacco-that is all there is to it.

One of the preceding speakers stated that he was from a low-yielding county, and they have not used chemicals. Well, I am from a high-yielding county and we do not use chemicals. In fact, I sold all of the MH-30 I had to the county stores at below cost, to get rid of it.

Now, you talk about acreage. We are in an enviable position in South Carolina. We have the highest average yield. We are not like the ostrich who puts his head in the sand and does not see anything.

I think a gentleman wrote a book called, "The One World." We have got to look at this problem from a national and international situation viewpoint. We have got 1 billion pounds of tobacco on hand. We cannot eat it.

We in South Carolina may not have put all of it there. I know that some of our adversaries say that, "Well, it was put in by another State." That may be true. I do not live in that State. But, still we cannot eat it, gentlemen. I repeat, we cannot eat it.

We have to consider the international sale and the export sale of tobacco. South Carolina is known for its quality tobacco.

I went to Europe 4 or 5 years ago as a member of a trade commission. I was at that time chairman of the Governor's Committee on Agriculture, and I talked to tobacconists in seven different countries. First, they loved the Virginia-type tobacco.

Second, they could not always find it.

I was talking in Hamburg, Germany, I think, to the BritishAmerican Tobacco Co. member, and he stated, "We cannot find enough of the grainy type of tobacco that we need."

Several weeks before the tobacco market ended this year a certain company was looking for an Irish order of tobacco. It was a B-4F and could not find that type of tobacco anywhere. He looked at Mullins, he looked at Fairmont-in the various tobacco markets that were open and could not get enough. And when they bought it they paid 75 to 80 cents a pound for it. That is a fact. Some of you know that to be a fact, and know the order. They could not find it.

Some people have said that we will lose our loose leaf sales. My good friend said that he did not particularly love it, anyway. I am a warehouseman. I thought it worked pretty well, but still it means choosing between loose leaf and survival of the American tobacco industry and if that is so, I choose survival of the American tobacco industry.

Remember, we have but one problem-too much tobacco.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you.

Our next witness is Mr. Sherwood Lane.

STATEMENT OF SHERWOOD LANE, MARION COUNTY, S.C.

Mr. LANE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, I am Sherwood Lane from Route 2, Marion County, S.C. I would like to go on record as being against this poundage-acreage control program.

I am a sharecropper. I farm. We have heard of overproduction and the stocks that Stabilization has. That may all be true, but in my years of farming which I have done all my life, I have found that the higher my yield has been the more the domestic companies and the export companies have bought my tobacco.

exp

I would like to oppose acreage-poundage control programs very much, because I do not think that they will work. And I think that Stabilization will wind up with more tobacco than they normally have and then next year we will be right back here saying, "You take 100 pounds more off of your acreage than what you have been producing." Ladies and gentlemen, the market price of tobacco today-with the market price of tobacco today, the profit is so close on it that if you cut any more poundage off, a lot of us would not be in business next

STATEMENT OF FRANK A. BROWN, JR., KINGSTREE, S.C.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the privilege of being here. And thank you, gentlemen, for coming down and listening to us.

I used to be a Tarheel, but married a good-looking gal down here, and I am still here.

I would like to point out to this House subcommittee that I favor some form of legislation that would offer a better solution to the overproduction of tobacco than the present acreage allotment. To me, this means that it would have to be some form of acreage poundage. I wish to point out that I am now set up to farm for 1965 based on my present allotment. Beds are planted and other arrangements made. It would be extremely hard for me or any other producer to adjust our 1965 farming to fit a new program such as is now proposed. However, I do feel that legislation should be passed for 1966 with a definite understanding that the years to be used now and in the future in establishing farm allotments should be 1959 through 1963.

Further, I believe that if I produce undesirable tobacco that is forced into the Stabilization my quota for the following year should be reduced by some reasonable percentage. This would discourage the continued production of tobacco not suitable to the trade. And the man who grew quality tobacco would not suffer the penalties that he would suffer if I put in a lot of it.

Thank you.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you.

The next witness is Mr. McCaskill.

STATEMENT OF A. L. McCASKILL, JR., BISHOPVILLE, S.C.

Mr. MCCASKILL. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to express my thanks, and I am sure that I speak for the farmers of South Carolina, in giving us an opportunity to speak our minds on this vital subject.

I am A. L. McCaskill, Jr., a tobacco grower of Route 4, Lee County, S.C., and do hereby voice my opposition to the proposed acreagepoundage allotment for tobacco. I admit it has a lot of merit, and I think that if we give it enough time and thought and have enough meetings of this sort we will come up with a solution to this tobacco problem and a good solution.

My opposition is based on the following factors:

First. The proposed allotment would allow the grower who has been producing extremely high yields of undesirable tobacco to continue to do so while limiting the amount that the "average yield" producer, who has been producing a quality leaf and one that is in demand, can produce.

Second. The proposed allotment will interfere with the orderly marketing of tobacco; especially our loose leaf program since many of us would hold back our lugs to see how our poundage developed.

Third. The proposed allotment would keep much of the lower priced tobacco off the market; thus forcing the industry to buy more expensive tobacco to meet needs that could be met more economically.

Fourth. The proposed allotment plan would not take into consideration the type of tobacco needed and desired by the industry; therefore, overlooking and ignoring the real problem facing the industry. Fifth. The proposed allotment would be hard to administer fairly and would create an incentive to be dishonest.