Mr. SABATH. Subsection (b) provides that the Secretary of Agriculture

May provide that any such limitation shall not apply to the farmer, tenant, or share cropper who in 1932 planted not more than a minimum acreage of such crops as shall be designated by the Secretary of Agriculture.

Mr. JONES. He could make an exception in the case where there was a minimum. I will state that that particular provision was suggested by those who have been handling the crop production administration.

Mr. PURNELL. Have the crop production people made any estimate as to the probable amount of collections? How much is this $11,000,000 in the Smith bill likely to be increased by collections? Mr. JONES. I have a general report here which contains some

comment.

Mr. PURNELL. We know what the House bill costs.

Mr. JONES. It says that there are some collateralized cotton holdings which will involve some collections. The substance of it is that they expect some very material collections up to near the basis of previous collections, but they do not expect that before the next harvesting season.

Mr. PURNELL. Not in time to do any good.

Mr. JONES. It would not make any material amount available for the loans for this year.

The CHAIRMAN. You want the rule to provide for the consideration of the Senate bill with the privilege of striking out the enacting clause and inserting the House bill; is that right?

Mr. JONES. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. How much general debate have you in mind? Mr. JONES. I think an hour's general debate would be sufficient. The CHAIRMAN. Do you mind telling us what is the attitude of the Committee on Agriculture with reference to this legislation?

Mr. JONES. There was no roll call vote on it, but as I remember, there was no opposition which developed in the committee. The total membership of the committee was not there, but they reported the bill out without any apparent opposition.

Mr. MARTIN. Did you have regular hearings on the bill?

Mr. JONES. We just had the reports of the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. GREENWOOD. You had a quorum of the committee?

Mr. BANKHEAD. Yes, sir. On page 23 of this printed report it says that if there should be any improvement in conditions in the next year or two it may be possible to collect considerable additional amounts. It does not give any great hope as to early collections.

Mr. Cox. How is this bill to operate in the case of a farmer who planted no cotton last year, and who desires to put some acreage into cotton in the present year?

Mr. JONES. That would depend on the regulations of the department. This is a permissive requirement for reduction.

Mr. Cox. He had no cotton last year, but he wants to put in some this year?

Mr. JONES. If the Secretary of Agriculture should make a regulation which would not permit it, he, of course, could not secure the loan, but he could plant it.

I can not conceive of a man who did not plant cotton last year who would want to go into cotton planting this year, on the prospect. Mr. Cox. Is it permissible for the Secretary of Agriculture to make such a regulation?

Mr. JONES. Oh, yes. I take it that where he had planted no cotton at all last year the Secretary would make a loan on the minimum basis anyway, because he can make a minimum exemption.

Mr. SABATH. It provides for the reduction of the acreage in one particular crop.

Mr. MICHENER. Why is there this special provision with reference to truck farms?

Mr. Cox. Why give emphasis to that?

Mr. JONES. The House bill does not include that.

Mr. MICHENER. You want to substitute the Senate bill?

Mr. JONES. No, I want to substitute the House bill. I made the very objection which the gentleman from Michigan makes. I said I did not think we ought to single them out.

Mr. Cox. You do single them out in the House bill; you give emphasis to their needs.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Fulmer insisted on a general provision. He wanted a dollar limitation, a raising of the money limitation, but I objected to that, and some of the other members did.

Mr. Cox. Truck farmers came under the law last year.

Mr. JONES. I did not think that provision was important, but Mr. Fulmer did.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Have they been making loans to truck farmers heretofore?

Mr. JONES. They have made some loans.

Mr. MICHENER. There is a provision for not to exceed $125 an acre on truck farms?

Mr. JONES. That is in the Senate bill.

Mr. MICHENER. It provides for loans of not to exceed $125 an acre, and in many instances that is more than the land is worth.

Mr. Cox. The House resolutions says:

Due consideration shall be given to the requirements of the truck-farming industry in the trucking areas of the various States.

Mr. JONES. That was put in at the insistence of Mr. Fulmer, who claimed that they had peculiar conditions. It is just a general provision. We do not carry the Senate provision that fixes the limit you have referred to.

Mr. BANKHEAD. I suppose the rule ought to provide that the House bill shall be considered as an original bill, so that amendments may be offered to it?

Mr. JONES. That is perfectly satisfactory.

Mr. RANSLEY. You say the Secretary of Agriculture made no report on this bill?

Mr. JONES. On this particular bill, no. But we collaborated with the division of the Department of Agriculture which handles these matters, and the Secretary's office referred us to that division. Mr. RANSLEY. Was he requested to make a report?

Mr. JONES. There has been no direct request.

Mr. MARTIN. As a matter of fact, has he not gone on record as being opposed to the continuance of these seed loans?

Mr. JONES. I do not like to quote the Secretary. I think the Secretary's attitude is very well known. He has not felt

Mr. DRIVER (interposing). His opposition to the principle of loans is generally known. The press has carried it.

Mr. JONES. I think everyone is familiar with the Secretary's attitude on that question.

Mr. DRIVER. He has never been sympathetic in any instance.
Mr. JONES. The Secretary can speak for himself.

Mr. DRIVER. It occurs to me, Mr. Jones, that in subparagraph (b), or at some other appropriate place in this bill, the language with respect to the reduction of the crops should carry this language, "the principal crops."

You take this situation that will be presented by a man who does not reduce his acreage in his cotton crop or his wheat crop. He has a certain acreage there that we disregard in this bill.

Mr. JONES. No.

Mr. DRIVER. Why is it not general?

Mr. JONES. The provisions of this bill, Mr. Driver, are general. It says crop-production loans, and there is nothing in the bill to prevent a loan covering other crops than the one on which he reduces his acreage. We made the provision general.

Mr. DRIVER. It is general, and in my opinion it is too general. The Secretary may require as a condition for making the loan that a borrower agree to reduce his acrage or production program on such a basis not to exceed 30 per cent, as may be determined by the Secretary of Agriculture.

Mr. Cox. In other words, he may have 40 acres of land.

Mr. DRIVER. And a reduction of 30 per cent of a given acreage. Mr. GREENWOOD. You mean if the 30 per cent applies to all, it will apply to a lot of idle land?

Mr. JONES. Necessarily so.

Mr. GREENWOOD. You want to make it apply to the principal crops?

Mr. JONES. Yes; I think that suggestion might be given consideration, but I would rather that the gentleman draft an amendment embodying his suggestion and submit it.

Mr. DRIVER. That is a matter that I think is important to be called to the attention of the committee, and I think the attention of the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture should be called to it.

Mr. JONES. I take it that the Secretary would not require that. This is a permissive requirement, and I take it he would not require an unreasonable regulation that would cover idle land.

Mr. DRIVER. This is a reasonable presumption, but in view of his oft-declared opposition to such operations, it seems to me that there is a very wide latitude allowed.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Has the Secretary made a ruling heretofore that it would apply to certain crops; that is, basic crops?

Mr. JONES. I would have to answer that from general information. As I understand, it, he only required a reduction in the specific major crops to which it applied and did not undertake to deal with a general production program.

Mr. GREENWOOD. As to the acreage reduced, or the planting of other crops that have not been included in the program?

Mr. JONES. That is my understanding.

Mr. MICHENER. Might not the entire result be that there would be no reduction, because a man might reduce his crop this year on wheat, while he gets a seed loan and that would give him so many idle acres, and he would plant something else in those acres without going to get a seed loan. Would not that interfere with the other proposition?

Mr. JONES. The principal problem is involved in the surplus crops. Mr. DRIVER. That may be true, Mr. Michener, but the purpose of this bill is not to permit any part of a man's land to grow up.

Mr. MICHENER. I am not so sure about that. I think the purpose of the bill is to reduce acreage and to reduce farm crops.

Mr. JONES. To reduce acreage of the principal exportable crops. Mr. MICHENER. If you are going to adopt that course, and shift the market

Mr. SABATH. I think it will be a benefit to the farmer himself. Mr. DRIVER. These lands in many areas grow up very rapidly. The CHAIRMAN. We thank you for your statement, Mr. Jones. We will now hear Mr. Fuller.

STATEMENT OF HON. CLAUDE A. FULLER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

Mr. FULLER. Mr. Chairman, my interest in this bill is in view of the fact that we need speedy action, because in entering into contracts with tenants we have to know what they can depend on next year so they can borrow money and start breaking ground and know that they are able to obtain seed loans for this next year.

I conferred with members of the Committee on Banking and Currency, especially with Mr. Henry Steagall, and he informed me, as he did Mr. Jones, that they desired to leave it on the Speaker's desk, and to take up the Jones bill, as Mr. Jones has designated.

In regard to the Smith bill, I think the provision in regard to 65 per cent of last year's crop is too drastic. It would only allow a man to plant about 35 or 40 per cent of what he did in 1931, and it seems to me it would be too radical.

I am of the opinion also that subsection (b) of section 2 is really too drastic.

It has been intimated here that if the Secretary of Agriculture, either the present Secretary or the next Secretary is rather opposed to this kind of legislation, then in such an event he will not give any more force and effect than he has to to the wording of this bill.

My opinion is that the wording of subsection (b) would be construed by him to mean 30 per cent taken off of land that was in cultivation last year. I think the thing to do is either to have this committee bring in a special rule, and if it is not amended in the House, when the conferees get together they can more plainly write the section in order to indicate what is really intended by it.

The big bulk crops, like corn and wheat and cotton are what hurt in the country; and what the Secretary of Agriculture and the people generally in the country seek to teach the tenant farmer to do is to diversify.

For instance, the tenant farmer in the South a few years ago did not known anything about raising anything except cotton. He would

not raise any potatoes or vegetables for his table, or anything with which to feed his stock.

The tendency by those interested in the tenant farmer has been to get him to diversify. If he could only rent 40 acres of land, it would not be fair to him to leave it to the Secretary of Agriculture to say, you can only put in 20 acres.

It might be all right to say to him, you are a cotton man, so you can only put in 40 or 50 per cent of the cotton that you did in 1931. But it would not be fair to say to him that to help himself and to help his family, he could not borrow something for the purpose of raising truck in the rest of that acreage, for the purpose of raising tomatoes for the use of the cannery, or for raising corn for his stock, or for planting grass to help him in raising his livestock. I think that provision ought to be more plainly written.

Mr. MARTIN. Would you not encourage overproduction in the other commodities, where there is just as much of a surplus?

Mr. FULLER. The people we are trying to reach are the men who have no property or credit so that such a man can go out and get something with which to plant his seed. We want him to be selfsustaining so he can maintain himself and his family, instead of having to depend upon the Reconstruction Finance Corporation or upon charity. He ought to have the opportunity to be able to borrow so that he may, by diversifying, be able to take care of his family.

These loans are not large; they are very small. They run from $25 to $30 or $40 down in my part of the country. Where a man is a good farmer, at the rural credit banks he can get a pretty good line of credit. But the poor tenant farmer

Mr. MARTIN (interposing). Does not this really work against itself? The purpose of this is to permit a man to continue in his business of making a living.

Mr. FULLER. Yes.

Mr. MARTIN. But the other purpose is to reduce acreage in the country so that the prices will be higher. Those are the two fundamental principles.

Mr. FULLER. Yes.

Mr. MARTIN. Now, if you permit the 40-acre man, for instance, who has been referred to, to plant, say, 16 acres in cotton, and then give him the privilege of growing tomatoes, of which you speak, in one section, and on the other section to grow corn or wheat-if a man is a tomato grower and you require him to reduce his acreage on tomatoes, he would not grow tomatoes, but he would borrow money, and then grow a few tomatoes, then he has the rest of the land that he can put into the crop on which another man has been cut down. So that it seems to me after all you have not gotten anywhere so far as acreage is concerned.

Mr. Cox. In the South, if you were to limit him to the 16 acres, you might as well send his family to the poorhouse.

Mr. FULLER. That is right.

Mr. SABATH. Where a man is a 40-acre farmer, there is nothing here that says he would be reduced 33 per cent, but if he were reduced he would then have about 27 acres.

The CHAIRMAN. All of this is subject to clarification by an amendment, or in conference.