The CHAIRMAN. Well, go ahead and make your statement, Mr. Reed.

Mr. REED. It would be physically impossible for a manufacturer to comply with this bill as I see it and make a memorandum of the different grades and types of tobacco as the bill provides shall be done.

As a manufacturer, I buy most of my tobacco in Kentucky and I buy a number of grades and classify them myself, take the stems out of them, make my own mixture or blend, redry the tobacco, and put it in the hogshead for two years. Now, you can well imagine what a mass of clerical work would devolve on a manufacturer to follow five or six sales made of different types of tobacco after he has blended them together, stemmed the tobacco, redried it, and put it in the hogshead. Some of the farmers may think that this will be helpful to them, but they do not realize that unless you can have a complete list covering all of the tobacco held, it would not be worth a cent because it does not tell you anything. The information would not be of any benefit to the manufacturer, but would cost him a great deal of money. I can not see where it would help the farmer at all. It is a perfectly useless bill. Mr. Chairman, I think that is all I have to say about it.

The CHAIRMAN. I think you have all made yourselves clear, gentlemen. The committee will give the matter consideration.

(Thereupon, at 11.30 o'clock a. m., the committee adjourned.)