within that period the second variety team goes out, and makes a check. If a green sample has not been made from the 15 plants, then it is made. It is sent into the laboratory for testing. In any case, where the two variety teams did not agree, and there is a disagreement among the employees of the Department of Agriculture, we in every instance give the farmer the benefit of the doubt.

Mr. COOLEY. So the final determination is made only after two teams have examined the questionable types of tobacco?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir; together with the chemical analysis. In other words, we try to go the whole route, and try to satisfy ourselves. Mr. COOLEY. Do you have many people who have contended that they were not planting the lower support varieties after those determinations were made?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, I do not know the exact percentage, but in Georgia and Florida the mixed-variety question, after we got into it, was not a point. There was no protest filed with us at all. We have had no protest filed with us. There may be some instances where we could get a questionable decision but we try to be sure.

Mr. COOLEY. In most of the cases where the tobacco has been suspect, it has turned out actually to be 1 of the 3 varieties?

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. If it is not 1 of the 3 varieties, we go ahead and give him a white card.

Mr. COOLEY. The reason I am asking these questions is because there are some people who are deeply interested in this question because they are acting in a trust capacity in the management of farms, and they want to do everything they can to let the people know for whom they are working that they are doing their best to protect themselves and to protect the trust. When a man is in that situation and he has the mixed varieties, he has to know what he can do.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.

Mr. COOLEY. And that is all he can do.

Mr. ABBITT. After you get that second team out there, and have their report, they still can take it up with the local county committee; can they not?

Mr. WILLIAMS. The local county committee and the State committee-I would presume the decision would be the same. Of course, if you have general disagreement on the county level, then I think the farmer should have the benefit of the doubt.

Mr. MCMILLAN. I wonder why the tobacco people did not consult with Mr. Lewis.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I might say that we notified the colleges of this program, and they appointed the representatives that came from each. State.

Mr. MCMILLAN. The president of our land-grant college advised me that Mr. Lewis was the best qualified man in the State on the subject of tobacco.

Mr. WILLIAMS. However, someone else was named, and someone else attended, and someone else concurred in the decision.

Mr. ABBITT. Who named that someone else?

Mr. WILLIAMS. The dean of agriculture at the respective colleges. Let me correct one thing. You asked me a question if there had been any letters solicited. After the hearing here on the 4th, and between then and the meeting on the 14th and the time of sending invitations

out, we did send letters to farm leaders, to farm organizations, to export companies and allied associations, as well as to domestic people inviting them to attend the meeting, and, if they could not come, to file a statement in writing. I believe I told him that there were no letters solicited, and I would like to correct that. They were asked if they could not attend in person to file a statement.

Mr. ABBITT. Let me ask one further clarifying question. Mr. Lewis, you said something about numerous people on whom a hardship would be worked in your area as a result of this program.

As I understood the testimony this morning, it was testified that only approximately 125 acres in the entire State had been judged to be of this outlawed variety or discount variety. Of that number of 125 acres, how many do you estimate were not of this variety?

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, I used that word "number" and I think I changed it to "some." I meant to, anyway. That was probably the wrong expression. I am not familiar with all the cases involved. I have been called in by the farmers to inspect five crops. There were 2 or 3 more who called me after the crop was out of the field, and I did

not go.

Mr. COOLEY. Of those five that you did inspect, how did your judgment stack up with the judgment of the Department?

Mr. LEWIS. I had to contradict each one of them.

Mr. COOLEY. In five instances?

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. ABBITT. Did those people or those farmers contend that it was not the discount variety?

Mr. LEWIS. That is right; in every case they contended that they were not, and they still were set to get a blue card, and they asked me to come in and give them my opinion.

Mr. ABBITT. I believe I asked this a while ago, but did not give you a chance to answer: Do you agree with the Department in its ruling that these 3 types are not the kind of tobacco that should be grown to meet the needs and demands of the trade today?

Mr. LEWIS. May I state it this way: I agree that the situation has developed within the trade which has made necessary some rather drastic actions. That drastic action was taken, and I agree wholeheartedly with that, and I also agree with the statement that had something not been done of that kind that would have the effect that that did, we would have had predominantly a so-called outlawed variety crop in the belt from Florida to Virginia this year which, under the present situation and under the situation we are living under now would have been, I think, a rather bad situation for the tobacco industry.

Mr. ABBITT. Dr. Rogers, do you agree with that statement?

Dr. ROGERS. I believe I made that statement a while ago.

Mr. ABBITT. Your answer was not quite plain to me, and I did not interpret it that way.

Dr. ROGERS. I said, in line with this statement that I believe Mr. Williams or someone else made, that we had to do something drastic or a high percentage would be planted. I agreed with that. I do not care what the variety is.

Mr. COOLEY. If the gentleman from Virginia will yield, Dr. Lewis, I thought you told me that you did not think anyone could go into a

field and identify the types and varieties, and that it could not be done on the warehouse floor. Now you tell us that in five instances you went out and examined the tobacco in the field and disagreed with the Department.

Mr. LEWIS. I said, in my opinion, they were wrong; I might be wrong, too.

Mr. COOLEY. That was your opinion, and the Department had their opinion?

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, sir; that is just a matter of judgment.

Mr. COOLEY. Anyway, Mr. Chairman, I think we are getting far afield. They have the program, and it is in operation, and it is going to continue in operation and, although we are sitting here as Members of Congress, I think we might as well admit we are helpless to do anything about it even if anything can be done about it. Frankly, I do not know, as a Member of Congress who is eager to do what is right, what to suggest to the administration, and I know you gentlemen are interested in it. Do you have any suggestion you can make to Mr. Williams now as to how he can improve the administration of this program?

Mr. ABBITT. They tell us it is necessary.

Mr. COOLEY. Everyone seems to think it is necessary and seems to think, if we did not have this program, you would be flooded with these objectionable types of tobacco, and we might lose our foreign markets.

Mr. LEWIS. The point I intended to make was that I felt that some drastic action should have been taken that would accomplish, certainly, to an extent, what was accomplished, but I did not want to indicate in any way that I agreed with the variety-outlaw program, as such, as a permanent solution to the problem.

Mr. COOLEY. Well, it is possible that Coker can improve 139 and 140? Dr. ROGERS. Yes, sir.

Mr. COOLEY. And you continue, Dr. Rogers, to try to improve those types, or are you going to abandon them?

Dr. ROGERS. That applies to any tobacco we release, Mr. Cooley. We are constantly improving it, and we are coming out with new material, and are feeding in new material all the time, and we are improving.

Mr. COOLEY. What do you expect to do, in view of these regulations? Dr. ROGERS. We have some tobacco that came out of the same crop from which 139 was derived, that ran around 3 percent. As a matter of fact, we had 2 that ran over 2.04 percent nicotine. Of course, we want to supply the tobacco that the farmers and the leaf people want. Mr. COOLEY. What do you suggest to us, the Members of Congress, and what do you suggest to these administrators, as to what may be done at the present time to relieve the predicament in which these people find themselves?

Dr. ROGERS. Well, as far as I am concerned, I think that this variety discrimination, as it has repeatedly been said that if a tobacco leaf quality can be recognized on the floor by the buyers, and if they have been used to buying tobacco by certain grade, as they told me when this thing came up-I asked a number of them if they were going to follow through with this thinking and they told me that they had never bought tobacco by variety and did not intend to start.

I am not going to enter into that argument, but when they get on the market they are not buying it. I do not know what the answer is. Mr. COOLEY. The answer is that if you did not put that blue card out they would buy much of it.

Dr. ROGERS. I do not think there is any doubt about it. It would seem to me if the Government wanted to give support, let it stand on that. However, as has been said before, if a commodity has a certain value to anyone looking at it as a prospective purchaser, let him buy it according to what he thinks it is worth. We do that with respect to other commodities.

We have grades for cotton and oats. In other words, if you did not want a tobacco grade, you do not buy it.

Mr. MCMILLAN. What do you think of the suggestion of taking all support off this type of tobacco which they claim is blacklisted, and letting the Government step out?

Dr. ROGERS. If the tobacco is not wanted by the trade, regardless of what we developed or what who developed, it seems to me the quickest way for a man to stop growing it is to reach into his pocket. Mr. MCMILLAN. Take all the support off of it?

Dr. ROGERS. If they want it and if we are going to have a competitive system, let it go on its own merits.

Mr. MCMILLAN. I have had a lot of letters from my farmers stating that they would like to have all supports removed, and get the Government off them, and sell the tobacco on the floor on its merit.

Mr. McINTIRE. I think the Department has rendered a real service by taking this in stages, because if you were running 40 percent of these varieties last year, and the Department has come up with the conclusion that they were not going to place any support under it, then your producers would be in a greater predicament than they perhaps

are now.

Dr. ROGERS. Maybe, and maybe not.

Mr. McINTIRE. But, at least, the Department has tried to accomplish or work with the industry, and I was going to emphasize that point, because I think it reflects the Department's working with the industry and not the Department arbitrarily moving in on the industry. And if it is the Department's objective to help them adjust to this situation, then they have rendered the industry a service by offering the 50-percent support for this year, as perhaps a step toward eventually moving out of these varieties entirely.

Dr. ROGERS. I believe it was the opinion of most growers that they would get the 50-percent support as far as stabilization was concerned, but they would not have the tobacco identified on the warehouse floor. Mr. MATTHEWS. Will you yield to me at that point?

Mr. McINTIRE. Yes, sir.

Mr. MATTHEWs. If we do not identify that tobacco, what is going to happen next year? In other words, they will produce so much more. Would it not be natural if my farmers were to say "Well, those South Carolina boys did not have their tobacco identified. They received just as much money as I did, and they produce a whole lot more." Then, just for the sake of elaborating a little, what is going to happen to the tobacco grower? That is what worries me.

Dr. ROGERS. The thing I am contending is if a tobacco buyer sees a basket of tobacco on the warehouse floor, and if he does not want it,

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he does not have to buy it. But if he wants it, according to his judg ment of quality or of his company's requirements, then he buys it. If he wants to buy it, let him buy it.

Mr. MATTHEWS. But my point is this: As I understand it, you do not want the Department to identify it?

Dr. ROGERS. Well, I would not say what I want; I am just offering a suggestion.

Mr. MATTHEWs. But I mean that seems to be the suggestion, and my point is that I do not know too much about it, but I do know from the evidence we have had that people who buy this tobacco do not want it. If you have some kind of a program which encourages farmers to keep planting what they buyers do not want, it means more and more goes into stabilization, and your entire program might go under. Like my colleagues, I am trying to find some solution to it. Dr. ROGERS. I appreciate that.

Mr. MCMILLAN. I just wonder why a company would buy this tobacco if they did not want it.

Mr. COOLEY. They do not know what they are buying.

Mr. ROGERS. I disagree with you there.

Mr. COOLEY. The tobacco buyers stood back there and bought some of my tobacco last year, and I knew it was 139.

Dr. ROGERS. Did they come back later and tell you it was not any good?

Mr. COOLEY. No; but they have a lot of it in the plants, and I have talked to these leaf men in the big companies and they said they cannot tell it on the warehouse floor.

Dr. ROGERS. Have any of them who bought it come back later and said after they got it in the plant that they did not want it?

Mr. COOLEY. Yes, sir; some of the buyers came to me and said we have this stuff, and did not realize what it was, and could not sell it. Dr. ROGERS. I am talking about the manufacturing plant.

Mr. COOLEY. Yes, sir; these exporters. They bought a lot of it, and they could not sell it, but they are tied down with it right now, and the stabilization people took a lot of it.

Dr. ROGERS. You know, we made surveys and we found that a larger percentage of some other tobaccos were going into stabilization

than 139.

Mr. COOLEY. I do not doubt that, and I do not think anyone would argue with you that you would not find some of the same characteristics in other types.

Dr. ROGERS. We do not worry about one variety.

Mr. LENNON. Under normal growing conditions-that, is, of soil and moisture--what are the distinguishable identifiable characteristics of 139 and 140 and Dixie Bright 244? I know as an expert you can tell us what the distinguishable and identifying characteristics of those three varieties are.

Dr. ROGERS. I believe I made a statement a while ago or is that a following up of that statement?

Mr. LENNON. No; I just want your statement in this record, as to how you would identify by distinguishable characteristics these three types which are now discounted varieties.

Dr. ROGERS. You might say there are three main things. Increasing the yield of tobacco. That is the first thing you look at on any crop.