are wanting to grow wheat for feed. I take it that that is the principal reason for the application to grow the wheat, and to have it exempted? How big a part does flour play in the economy of the people who are growing the wheat for feed on the farm? Is that an important factor?

Mr. SORKIN. I do not think so.

Mr. BERGER. I doubt if it could be.

Mr. SORKIN. It could not be too much.

Mr. JONES. If that be the case, would it be worth while to consider that all of this wheat would be not only fed or used on the farm, but would be processed on the farm, because as I understand it most of these people who feed the wheat have their own small mills and feed grains, that they actually process the wheat that is going to be used for feed on the farm and do it there, don't they?

Mr. BERGER. I doubt if that is exactly true. I can visualize a lot of them, at least, that are going to feed it to dairy cattle, would not grind it. They would take it into a plant where they can get it steamed and rolled. Ground wheat fed to dairy cattle gums up their mouth, whereas, if they steam and roll it they could use it much better as a dairy feed. I do not think we would want to say processing on the

farm.

Mr. SMITH. I want to make this remark. It was not about this flour for human consumption, but if I am able to read farm journals and farm magazines, the people down South are more interested in this than any other part of the United States because you are going down there and raising pigs on a production-line basis.

In other words, they are setting up and raising young pigs on the production-line basis. And they are going to take this wheat and take it into the market and get it processed, and it will be further used as feed on these production lines that they are establishing all over the South. That is the new gimmick in agriculture. You will see that they are going into it like they did a few years ago on the broiler proposition. They are going to use this in that way. That is what I am trying to get pinpointed-what you are going to do about this farmer that has 30 acres of wheat and processes it and brings it back. Can he pay in grain or must he pay cash for processing it?

We have a man over here from Georgia and a Member of Congress down there.

Mr. BELCHER. Will you yield right there? If you paid for the processing in cash, it would be the same as doing the processing on the farm.

Mr. JONES. I am like you, that we are trying to keep all of this on the farm and not letting him bring the flour back to the farm, and bran and so forth go into trade. That is what we are trying to accomplish, as I see it.

Mr. BELCHER. I agree that ought to be tightened up. I am wondering if you made him pay for the processing in cash, that you would serve the same purpose, because it may be possible that they want to take it to a neighbor's farm and grind it, or some little mill in town. At the same time, I do not see that it will affect the overall market as long as the only thing he can do with that wheat is to feed it to his own stock on his own farm.

Mr. SMITH. Here are thousands of bushels from the farm going into process, into feed that will go back. The process is simply this,

it will make feed-they will mix some middlings in it and antibiotics in it and take it back. Does he have to pay cash for that or does he take the toll out of the bushels that he brings in?

Mr. BELCHER. I think he ought to pay cash.

Mr. WATTS. On page 2 it says this:

The entire crop of wheat is used on such farm for feed, human feed or feed for livestock.

If you construe that according to what it says, everything that he takes to the mill has to come back.

Mr. BERGER. That is right.

Mr. WATTS. And I think in the report, if you decided to vote it out, that in connection with section III, you could emphasize that everything he took to the mill had to come back to the farm.

Mr. JONES. What I was trying to get at was this. Another thing I want to bring out is this: If you permit this fellow to grow these 30 acres or any other amount that you want to fix it at, it seems to me that he should not be able to retain a wheat acreage for allotment purposes.

If he is raising this and not complying with the regular wheat program, we are making an exemption. I cannot see why he is not willing to abandon his interest in a wheat allotment on that farm if he is particularly interested, and we are permitting him to grow all of this, going to consume it all on the farm. If that is the farm practice that he wants to get into, it would be less trouble for the Department it seems to me, less trouble to administer. This fellow is just out of the wheat program, he can grow all of it on the farm, and that is just it. Would not that make sense?

Mr. BELCHER. I think that is the intent of the bill.

Mr. JONES. No. He retains the acreage; if he has 7 or 10 or 12 acres, he just retains it. I think he should be willing to give up this allotment, and if he wants to get back in the program, he will come in as a new farm and start all over again.

Mr. WATTS. Because you are going to let him have his allotment and then grow on top of it all of the wheat he raises and the whole thing

Mr. BERGER. Exactly right, but he does reserve

Mr. WATTS. You mean that allotment is hanging in the air, it is not used?

Mr. BERGER. That is right. It is held there and he cannot use it. If one year he raises it for feed, and he decides he wants to go back to raising wheat for market, he has his quota established according to the law. We think that this is all right. He cannot do it the but it is held in reserve for him.

same year,

Mr. ROONEY. There is another point.

Mr. JONES. You said a minute ago that they could build it up. Mr. ALBERT. No, they cannot.

Mr. JENNINGS. No, they cannot.

Mr. BERGER. The extra acreage does not help to build it up.

Mr. JONES. Then this fellow could plant a hundred acres?

Mr. MILLER. That is the way the law is now.

Mr. JONES. I know it is under the present law. That is why I think the present law is wrong.

Mr. MILLER. We agree there.

Mr. JONES. I think that now is the time to correct it.

Mr. BELCHER. I am right along with you. Let us make it 15 acres minimum. It is not correct if he enters into this program.

Mr. ALBERT. The 15-acre man, if he has an 8-acre allotment under the present law and plants 15 acres, has a history on the 15-acre basis. Under this bill he can plant his 15 acres but his history is based on his 8-acre allotment, and not on his 15 acres.

Mr. SORKIN. That is in section II.

Mr. WATTS. Section II?

Mr. ALBERT. If we do the other things we are going to start a new process which will be dangerous, in my opinion.

Mr. WATTS. I am sorry I didn't understand it sooner, so I could have gotten myself a wheat base. It is too late now.

Mr. ALBERT. If you eliminate the entire allotment, you will be shifting acres into the areas in which surpluses exist.

Mr. SORKIN. We don't eliminate that allotment.

Mr. BERGER. What area is in surplus wheat?

Mr. ALBERT. If you eliminated allotments in the State of Pennsylvania, for example, that would mean that Kansas where wheat is grown for commercial purposes and which type of wheat is in surplus, would get larger allotments. That is what that means. We will have an adverse effect, in reverse from what we are trying to correct here. We don't want to reverse the situation, and take all of the wheat allotments away from the rest of the country and place them in the commercial belt.

Mr. BELCHER. But this 15-acre business, this section 8 provides that you cannot use excess acreage to build up history. There is not a single thing in here that affects the 15-acre allotment at all.

Mr. MILLER. That is right.

Mr. ALBERT. It is not an allotment.

Mr. BELCHER. It will not affect that 15-acre exemption.

Mr. ALBERT. Except it says that he cannot get a history for any part of it above his allotment.

Mr. BELCHER. Yes, that is true.

Mr. ALBERT. That is what your people are complaining of.

Mr. WATTS. Under this he can use the 15 acre, 30 acre, both. He cannot use his allotment for either one of them. What becomes of his allotment for the 15 acres. It opens the allotment to support prices. I have an 8-acre allotment, and say this law becomes effective, I can still raise the 15 acres and get support price on the 8 acres. Mr. BERGER. No.

Mr. WATTS. You can do that under the present law.

Mr. SORKIN. There is no support price if you exceed your allot

ment.

Mr. BELCHER. He can raise 15 acres without paying any penalty on it.

Mr. WATTS. That is right.

Mr. JONES. If the fellow has an 8-acre allotment, and you come in to the ASC office and claim that, then you can only plant that 8 acres, is that right? If you have a cotton or tobacco allotment, and claim the 8 acres, and if he wants over that, say to 15

Mr. WATTS. You are talking about soil bank.

Mr. JONES. No; I had a farm client in Arkansas, he had a cotton allotment, wheat allotment, and some other allotment, but he claimed his wheat allotment of less than 15 acres. Then he went on and

thought that he could plant 15 acres, so he went on and planted the 15 acres, and then they called him out of compliance, and made him plow under in order to preserve, to get his cotton support and his wheat support.

Mr. MILLER. We do not have that.

Mr. WATTS. He was in cross-compliance.

Mr. ROONEY. That was cross-compliance.

Mr. SORKIN. That is not in effect now.

Mr. JONES. When did we take that out-2 years ago?
Mr. BERGER. That only lasted a very short time.

Mr. SORKIN. It never was made effective.

Mr. ALBERT. Any other questions?

Mr. JONES. You mentioned a minute ago about this law being upheld as to constitutionality. It would seem to me that if a farmer plants on his own farm any crop and he does not get it off of that farm, and it is used all on the farm, and he is not in any program where he is obtaining money from the Government, either soil bank or support prices, I don't see how under the Constitution that you could regulate the amount that he would plant as long as he used it on that farm. That has been upheld?

Mr. BERGER. That is right. Although he is not in any program at all and gets no money from the Government; that is right.

Mr. BELCHER. Unless he sells some of it, he sells his hogs or cattle. Mr. JONES. If it is not supported, I don't see how they could do that.

Mr. WATTS. He has to put it into something. They will raise all of the food right on the farm-the first thing you know they will be doing that.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. Mr. Chairman, I understand that over on the Senate side where a similar bill was introduced, the Senate committee considered an amendment to the bill which would have denied the right to participate in a wheat referendum to persons who were taking advantage of the exemption offered by the bills, or perhaps in reverse, would have denied the exemption to a person who had participated in the referendum. In other words, you cannot be in the program and claim exemption from the program. They probably will write something in their report that will have that effect. I wonder if you might like for the staff to draft language which would do that, so it might be considered by you. Certainly, if such a thing is going to be done, it should be spelled out in the bill rather than trying to write that kind of law in the committee report.

Mr. SMITH. We spent just 9 days trying to get all people the right to vote, and now we are going to take it away from them.

Mr. BELCHER. I do not believe that a man who claims exemption from the law ought to vote that law on somebody else.

Mr. JONES. He is not entitled to both.

Mr. JENNINGS. I agree with you.

Mr. BELCHER. He is either in or out. If he is going to say, "Well, I am going to vote this law on you, but I am going to claim exemption from this same law."

Mr. ALBERT. If he has an allotment he is entitled to vote under the law, is that right?

Mr. SORKIN. No. If he takes advantage of the 15 acres, he has to have more than 15 acres for harvest before he can vote.

Mr. ALBERT. That is right.

Mr. JENNINGS. Isn't this whittling away at the wheat program, just one more step of chipping it away?

Mr. BERGER. I do not know just how you mean that.

Mr. JENNINGS. Now you are extending it. If we keep extending it, what advantages are we going to have?

Mr. BERGER. This is one thing that we feel is necessary if we are going to have an effective wheat program.

Mr. WATTS. Section I might hurt it a little.

Mr. BERGER. I doubt it very much, for the simple reason that I would as soon have him raise wheat for feed as anything else. As long as he is going to use it for feed.

Mr. HEIMBURGER. You are apt to have less feeding value out of an acre of wheat than other crops?

Mr. BERGER. That depends. A man would do better raising wheat than he would many other crops. I think that would vary definitely areawise, with conditions of his own farm and soil conditions. There are certain areas where I would rather raise wheat.

Mr. ALBERT. May I ask you this-do you think it might be wise to have the limitation, and maybe find out what happens, and perhaps broaden the law and take the limitation off in a later bill?

Mr. BERGER. We are not insisting that you eliminate the 30 acres. We say that we think it would be a little fairer and easier to administer. We think it would be simpler if we did not put the 30-acre limitation in it.

We have told you in our testimony that we will accept the 30 acres rather than nothing, because we feel quite strongly that this is a step in the right direction. It would take care of a lot of people. On the other hand, we also say that we would prefer to see the 30acre limitation removed. We think it would be simpler if it was not there.

Mr. ALBERT. We appreciate your testimony. It has been very helpful.

If there are no further questions, we might call on you or your counsel when we get into the problem in drafting amendments when we go into executive session.

Mr. BERGER. We will be glad to help you at any time we can. Mr. ALBERT. We have some of our colleagues with us and I note the presence of the distinguished gentlewoman from New York, who has been interested in this for a long time, and with whom I have served on the Committee on Post Office in days gone by, a very fine Member of the House, Mrs. St. George. We will be pleased to have your testimony at this time.

You are one of the authors of one of these bills.

STATEMENT OF HON. KATHARINE ST. GEORGE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE 28TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mrs. ST. GEORGE. Yes, sir, I am. My bill is H. R. 2029. It is the same bill that I have introduced before, and on which I have testified before this committee.

94743-57-4