quantities of soybeans. The oil resulting therefrom must be marketed to the consumer in a manner pleasing and agreeable to them if farmers are to obtain a fair price for their crops.

As a processor of soybeans located in Iowa, as a manager of cooperative_elevator owned and operated by a group of farmers in Grundy County, Iowa, I feel that we have a right to market our soybean oil in a wholesome nutritious form without taxation and without color restrictions. Neither butter nor margarine nor any other commodity has a monopoly on yellow color. The same artificial coloring is used in butter that is used in yellow margarine. Soybean oil in its natural state is a golden yellow color just as June butter is a natural yellow. Standardization of butter necessitates the use of artificial coloring the major portion of the year. Standardization of the color of margarine would require a similar coloring agent. One product has the same right to that coloring agent as the other. Neither can justify taxation nor restrictions of the other as a means of market monopoly.

As manager of a grain elevator located in the dairy section of Iowa, it appears to me that the producers of butter and margarine have a joint problem. The consumption of table spreads in America should be increased. It cannot be increased by butter alone when the production of butter in my section of Iowa, the largest butter producing State in the Nation, is declining each year.

We must recognize that the agriculture and the industry of our Nation are changing. We must recognize that the consumers of America are not going to take one portion of their table spread colored yellow and be forced to take the other portion of that table spread colored white.

We suggest that the consumer has a right to buy and the soybean producer has a right to sell margarine made from soybean oil on a yellow basis without the extraction of the 10-cent tax by government, and without governmental ban on the color of a commodity which is naturally yellow.

In asking that this committee take favorable action toward the repeal of the present taxes and restrictions on the sale of yellow margarine, we are not asking for special privilege; we do not ask for restrictions on other commodities; we do not suggest substitution nor curtailment of the production of other commodities.

Gentlemen, the implication of the present Federal 10-cent a pound penalty tax on yellow margarine is astonishing when analyzed.

If all the margarine now made of soybean oil were colored yellow to meet the consumer's preference, the Federal tax thus imposed would amount to 25 or 30 million dollars a year. This would be the equivalent of $2.50 or $3 an acre for each acre of soybeans grown in the United States, or $12.50 to $15 per acre for that portion of the crop of oil production which goes into margarine.

This intolerable situation will not be cured by the repeal of the tax if that repeal carries with it the absolute prohibition against yellow margarine in interstate commerce. The soybean industry is too important to our agricultural economy to tolerate such an artificial barrier between it and the desires of one of its important consumers, the housewife, who wants a yellow table spread. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HOEY. Thank you very much.

89343-49--13

The committee will take a recess until 2 o'clock. Senator George hopes to return at that time, and hear the balance of the witnesses scheduled for today.

(Whereupon, the committee recessed to reconvene at 2 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The committee resumed at 2 p. m., at the expiration of the recess.) The CHAIRMAN. The hour for the reconvening of the committee having arrived, we find it necessary to proceed. There may be other Senators on the committee that will come in later. The Senate being in session, of course, it interferes with the committee hearings. Our first witness this afternoon is Mrs. Sarah Eigan.

STATEMENT OF MRS. SARAH EIGAN, LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM CHAIRMAN OF THE ARLINGTON, VA., BRANCH, ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN, ARLINGTON, VA.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that it is agreeable with Mr. Wing: that you be heard at this time?

Mrs. EIGAN. Yes.

I have a statement here, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the American Association of University Women, which I would like to read. The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.

Mrs. EIGAN. The American Association of University Women, like many other organizations, has been appearing before congressional committees for the last 2 years to urge support of legislation removing discriminatory taxes and other limitations on the sale of oleomargarine. Opposition to these discriminations has been carried by our members to the State legislatures in Wisconsin, Kansas, Illinois, and other States. In Wisconsin, one of the country's largest dairy States, the AAUW State division has opposed discriminatory taxes on oleomargarine continuously since 1942, and in 1948 and 1949 passed a resolution stating its opposition at the national level.

This association, representing many consumers, is weary of hearing the arguments of two special interests pitted against each other in Congress, in the press and over the radio. The issue is not whether

such legislation as that being considered by this committee will wipe out the dairy industry, or whether failure to pass the legislation will wipe out the margarine industry. The issue is whether the consumer should be deprived of his right to buy a nutritious product at a reasonable price because of unjust legislative protection granted the dairy interests at the State and National level. The consumer is being used by both sides in arguments both for and against this legislation. The American Association of University Women urges this com-mittee to recognize its responsibility to the individual citizen, the consumer, and end the protection of the long-established butter industry against competitors at the expense of the consumer. The expend-iture of time and money on this issue to date is a disgrace, especially in the light of other critical issues needing immediate attention.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Is your home in Wis-

consin?

Mrs. EIGAN. I am originally from Illinois, but I represent the Arlington branch of the American Association of University Women. The CHAIRMAN. I see. Thank you very, very much.

Mrs. EIGAN. Thank you. And I wish to thank Mr. Wing, also. The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Mr. David G. Wing. Will you identify yourself to the reporter?

STATEMENT OF DAVID G. WING, PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR, AMERICAN SOYBEAN ASSOCIATION, MECHANICSBURG, OHIO

Mr. WING. My name is David G. Wing, of Mechanicsburg, Ohio. I am a farmer, born and reared on an Ohio farm. I have been both past president and a director of the American Soybean Association. I operate one farm of 310 acres myself and another of 1,300 acres in cooperation with a partner on the shares.

I think that I am a good farmer with a fair degree of intelligence. These farms are not show places but I am always glad to show them friends who come around.

to any

of my On three previous occasions I have testified on margarine bills in Washington and I just finished a hearing before the Ohio Legislature where a similar bill is pending. My experience dates back to the depression of the thirties when we had a domestic fats and oils conference here in Washington and were all working together to try and stop the importation of tropical oils which had created a surplus in the United States of several billion pounds. You all remember what this surplus, along with low-buying power by our American public, did to fat and oil prices.

Coconut oil at 2%1⁄2 cents per pound was in surplus, thus forcing soybean oil down to 2.9 cents, cottonseed oil to 41⁄2 cents, lard to 3 cents, and butterfat to 17 cents. Then the war came on and all these prices of domestic fats_raised up to a point where we farmers could see daylight again. But remember, imported coconut and palm oils were shut off completely by our enemies.

Now lets go back to my Ohio farms. We raise corn, soybeans, wheat, and alfalfa. In one field of alfalfa our dairy cows graze, in the next field soybeans are grown, a profitable crop in the Darby plains of central Ohio. Just over the fence are our spotted hogs. Of course, the corn is fed to the hogs and dairy cows and the wheat is sold at the elevator.

All these crops compete with each other for the consumer's market, and yet both the hogs and cows need the alfalfa, soybeans, and corn. Without thinking, you say that I would not need to grow the soybeans, but how would I get any milk production without soybean oil meal? In the days gone by hogs were fed straight corn or alfalfa, and they made a fair gain until hog supplement was developed and we found out that we could not get along profitably without soybean meal, which is the main ingredient of dairy and hog supplement.

Soybeans have another byproduct besides soybean meal, that is, soybean oil. Hogs also have another byproduct besides pork chops and ham; that is, lard. Ever since the day of vegetable shortening lard has been in surplus and most of the time has sold below the price of hogs. Last week hogs on foot brought me $20.25 per hundredweight in Columbus, Ohio, and yet lard is around 10 cents per pound. This has been going on for over 20 years and yet the hog raisers have

never asked that vegetable shortening be colored green or that a tax be placed on it to protect lard.

I have a big stake in this Jersey herd of ours and yet I do not worry in the least that the soybean oil which we raise just over the fence from the cows and the hogs will ever put either one out of business, and I hope to live to prove to some of my friends in Ohio and Washington that we will not kill 2,000,000 dairy cows if margarine is colored and made tax free.

I have though about this proposition for years and I can figure no way to build my fences high enough to tax my soybeans against my dairy cows or my hogs. Since soybeans have, 17 to 20 percent oil content we get around 10 pounds of oil from a bushel of beans. At 10 cents per pound this oil is worth $1 per bushel but at 20 cents per pound it is worth $2 per bushel. The same illustration could be used in dozens of other farm products which are competitive but there is no time for them.

It is easy to see that the higher the price of oil the cheaper soybean oil meal can be sold to the dairy farmer, thus reducing his feed cost. As I have said, lard is now in surplus and I wager to say that its low price has just as much or more to do with the price of butterfat as margarine has since any fat or oil in surplus will tend to depress the market.

In closing, let me say that the dairy cow needs soybean meal and the food industry needs soybean oil. Is there any more logic in taxing soybean oil which goes into margarine than there would be to tax soybean meal which my dairy cows make into milk and butter? Is there any more reason why margarine made from yellow soybean oil should be banned in interstate shipment than for butter artificially colored to be banned? When both are wholesome food products from American farms?

I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Wing, we appreciate your appearance here before the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness this afternoon is Mr. J. W. Calland. Will you identify yourself for the record, please?

STATEMENT OF J. W.

NATIONAL SOYBEAN
DECATUR, IND.

CALLAND,

CROP

MANAGING DIRECTOR, IMPROVEMENT COUNCIL,

Be

Mr. CALLAND. Mr. Chairman, and members of the Finance Committee, my name is J. W. Calland. My home is Decatur, Ind. I am an agronomist, a member of the American Society of Agronomists, and of the Soil Science Society of America. I am here at the request of the American Soybean Association of which I am a member. cause of the charges that have been made that the soybean crop is ruining our agriculture and destroying our soil I have been asked to present to this committee the effect of the soybean on the soil and its relationship to erosion.

For the past 12 years-first as agronomist for the Central Soya and Central Sugar Čos. of Decatur, Ind., and now as agronomist and managing director of the National Soybean Crop Improvement Council—I have been engaged in agronomic research concerning the pro

duction problems of the soybean crop. For 8 years, beginning in 1936, we grew annually some 1,200 to 1,500 acres each of soybeans and sugar beets on our company-owned experimental and demonstration farms located in Indiana and Ohio.

Purdue Agricultural Experiment Station collaborated with us from the beginning in our research work on both of these crops, and I have the honor at the present time of being a member of the board of trustees of Purdue University. I have served as chairman of the agronomy section of the American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists, which has its headquarters at Salt Lake City.

During the past few years I have attempted to determine the available and pertinent agronomic facts about the soybean crop and its effect on Corn Belt farming. To do this, I have had the help and cooperation of the county agents and some 8,700 soybean growers in 50 selected soybean counties. Also, I have had the helpful assistance of the agronomy staffs, soil conservationists, and others who are working with the soybean crop at the various State agricultural experiment stations.

A booklet entitled "Soybean Farming" and a poster entitled "What Crops Remove From the Soil" has been placed in your hands. In this booklet we have attempted to summarize the results of research work done on the soybean crop by the agricultural colleges and experiment stations of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri.

The statements in this booklet have helped to answer the questions of soybean growers and others about this new crop-its relation to soil productivity, to other crops in the rotation, to soil conservation, and the place soybeans should occupy in their farming scheme. The information given in these booklets is not made up of my opinions. I have attempted to relate the results of soybean crop research that has been carried on by the State experiment stations.

Moreover, the staff members at each station not only approved the material to be included, but also assisted in the preparation of these statements.

Crop authorities classify crops generally into "soil improving" and "soil depleting" crops, according to their over-all effect on soil productivity. The clovers and alfalfa, deep-rooted legumes, and sod crops are the principal "soil improving" crops when properly handled. The nonlegume crops such as corn, wheat, oats, and other small grains are the main "soil depleting" crops of the Corn Belt.

First, I wish to refer to the table on page 10 and the chart on page 11 of the report entitled "Soybean Farming." This material is reproduced on this poster entitled "What Crops Remove From Your Soil." This shows that an average crop of soybeans removes less plant food from the soil than these other typical farm crops. Here we see that soybeans add some nitrogen to the soil, and from the standpoint of removing mineral nutrients they rank about average among the common farm crops.

Ohio agronomists in their table of Soil Productivity Factors for Crops place the soybean as about neutral or mildly soil depleting. They rank soybeans as one-half as soil depleting as wheat and oats and only one-fourth as soil depleting as corn.

Fortunately, only the soybean seed is removed from the land. The plant nutrients contained in the soybean stems, leaves, and roots are returned to the soil. Thus, the soybean grower can add to the