excess of the general soil-depleting base. The base for rice followed the bases previously established under the production-adjustment programs, with necessary adjustments.

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION OF CROPS

Crops were classified in two classes, soil-depleting and soil-conserving. Certain uses of land were classified as "neutral." The classifications were virtually uniform for a group of crops but variations from them have been made in particular instances for the regions. From the national classification regional modifications were made. Changes resulted chiefly from recommendations of State committees.

The general classification varied considerably among regions and was modified in all regions in order to encourage production of needed feed and forage crops when drought developed. In general, "soildepleting" crops were the intensively cultivated row crops such as corn, cotton, and tobacco, and the small grains such as wheat and oats. The soil-conserving crops were, in general, grasses, legumes, and green-manure crops.

Land uses classified as neutral included: Vineyards, tree fruits, small fruits, nut trees, idle cropland, cultivated fallow land including clean-cultivated orchards and vineyards, wasteland, roads, lanes, yards, lots, etc., and woodland other than that planted at owner's expense since 1933.

THE RANGE-IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM FOR 1936

In 1936 the Agricultural Adjustment Administration made studies and held hearings in developing a program to help ranchers work out better grazing methods for the range land under their control. The attack on the range problem had to be made from the beginning, since no previous programs had been carried out on this phase of the agricultural industry. The studies and hearings were completed in the fall of 1936, and a range program for the 13 States in the western region was announced October 23, 1936.

This program provided that ranchers could earn payments by adopting a wide variety of range-building practices, if the practices were approved by the county committee and a competent ranch examiner; and provided that the total payments earned on any ranch should not exceed $2 per animal unit on its established grazing capacity.

The practices approved under this program included: Contouring range land according to approved standards; development of springs, seeps, and wells, or construction of reservoirs for catching run-off; water spreading to prevent soil washing; rodent control; fire-guard construction; removing sagebrush; reseeding depleted range land; and construction of range fences needed in the interest of range conservation. Although the 1936 program was not announced until late in the year, ranchers controlling approximately 56,000,000 acres of privately owned range land had the grazing capacity of their ranges appraised and earned a considerable portion of the practice allowances which were set up.

TWO TYPES OF PAYMENTS MADE

Insofar as administratively practicable payments were made only for positive performance by farmers in improving and conserving farm land. Two types of payment were offered to cooperating

farmers, a "soil-building payment" and a "soil-conserving payment. The soil-building payments were made for 1936 seedings of soilbuilding crops on cropland, and for approved soil-building practices on cropland or pasture in 1936, at a rate within each State that was based upon recommendations of the State committee and approved by the Secretary of Agriculture. A farmer could qualify for soilbuilding payments in a total amount equal to $1 for each acre on the farm in soil-conserving crops in 1936. An exception was made in the interests of small producers, who could qualify for payments up to $10 without regard to acreage limitations.

Soil-conserving payments were made for shifting acreage from soildepleting to soil-conserving crops in 1936. Maximum limits on the payments were established to protect the interests of consumers and for purposes of budget control. The rates were based upon estimates that 80 percent of farmers eligible would participate. Provisions were made for altering the rate by not more than 10 percent if participation fell short of or exceeded the estimates. Requirements for payments included the provision that the total acreage of soilconserving crops should at least be equal either to 20 percent of the farm's soil-depleting base or to the percentage on which a soil-conserving payment could be made. In all regions it was provided that deductions would be made on a per-acre basis, for acreage of soildepleting crops in excess of the base acreage of such crops, and in the Southern and East Central Regions it was provided that payments for diversion of acreage from soil-depleting food and feed crops would be made only when the acreage of such crops normally grown on the farm exceeded the acreage required to meet home consumption requirements on the farm.

RATES OF SOIL-CONSERVING PAYMENTS

The rates of soil-conserving payments averaged $10 per acre for the United States for diversion from all soil-depleting crops except cotton, tobacco, peanuts, sugar beets, sugarcane for sugar, flax, and rice. This rate varied among States, counties, and individual farms as the productivity of the crop land used for these crops varied from the average productivity of all such crop land in the United States. The maximum acreage on which such payments were made was 15 percent of the base acreage for the farm, of all soil-depleting crops other than cotton, tobacco, peanuts, sugar beets, sugarcane, flax, and rice.

The rate for diversion from cotton was 5 cents per pound on the normal yield per acre of cotton for the farm, and the maximum acreage on which payment was made was 35 percent of the total base acreage for the individual farm.

Payments for diversion from tobacco were made on a maximum acreage equal to 30 percent of the base tobacco acreage for the farm at rates based on the normal yields of tobacco for the farm. The rates per pound of such normal yield were as follows: For flue-cured, Burley, or Maryland tobacco, 5 cents per pound; for fire-cured or dark air-cured, 3%1⁄2 cents per pound; for Connecticut Valley types 51 and 52, 4 cents per pound; and for Pennsylvania and New York types 41 and 53, Miami Valley types 42, 43, and 44, or Wisconsin types 53 and 54, the per pound rate was 3 cents.

For diversion from peanuts harvested for nuts, a rate of 14 cents per pound of the normal yield per acre for the farm was made on a

maximum acreage equal to 20 percent of the farm's base acreage of peanuts harvested for nuts.

For sugar beets and sugarcane, the payment for diversion was 12% cents per hundred pounds of sugar produced on a base acreage with the requirement that one-quarter as much land be devoted to soilconserving crops as to sugar crops.

For flax, the payment was 20 cents per bushel on the average yield of flaxseed in the county on the acreage planted, with a provision that, in addition to land diverted under the general program, an acreage at least equal to 20 percent of the flax acreage be planted to soil-building crops in addition to land diverted under the general

program.

To qualify for payment for diversion from rice it was required that an acreage equal to not less than 20 percent of the base rice acreage be devoted to soil-improving crops, while not less than 65 percent of the base must be planted to rice in order to qualify. The rate of payment was 20 cents for each 100 pounds of the producer's domesticconsumption quota of rice.

DIVISION OF PAYMENTS

Soil-conserving payments were divided generally on the basis of the share of each producer in the soil-depleting crops with respect to which the payment was made, although deviations from this rule were made for various crops and types of farms. In the Western and Northeastern Regions and in the North Central Region, except on cotton farms in designated areas, soil-conserving payments were divided among interested producers on the basis of their share in the principal soil-depleting crop produced on the farm in 1936. On tobacco farms in the Southern Region and on farms other than cotton farms in the East Central Region, two-thirds of all soil-conserving payments were divided on a crop-share basis and the remaining third was divided equally between the person furnishing the land and the person furnishing the work stock and equipment. On cotton farms in the East Central Region and in designated areas in the North Central Region, and on farms other than tobacco farms in the Southern Region, one-half of all soil-conserving payments (except general crop payments in designated areas in western Texas and Oklahoma and sugarcane payments in Louisiana and Florida which were divided entirely on a crop-share basis) were divided on a crop-share basis and the other half was divided three-fourths to the person furnishing the land and one-fourth to the person furnishing the work stock and equipment.

Soil-building or class II payments were divided either on the basis of the contribution of the producers to the expense of carrying out soil-building practices or on the basis of the share of each producer in the principal soil-depleting crop produced on the farm. The former method was used in the Northeast, East Central, and Southern Regions and on cotton and sharecropper farms in the North Central Region. The latter method was used on all other farms.

XIII. RESULTS OF THE 1936 AGRICULTURAL CONSERVATION

PROGRAM

In the agricultural conservation program for 1936 American farmers have had, for the first time, the economic support and protection of the Federal Government in a cooperative attack on the problem of soil erosion and soil depletion on the privately owned farm lands of the country. Since the turn of the century, Federal and State agencies have done research and educational work on this problem. The nature and extent of the problem have been surveyed and methods of dealing with it have been evolved and taught to farmers.

In 1936, under the provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration programs, farmers received financial help which met part of the cost of adopting tested soil-protecting and soil-conserving practices on their own farms, and were organized to carry out a national program designed to improve and protect the agricultural resources of the whole Nation.

At the end of 1936 only a small percentage of the applications of farmers for payment earned under the 1936 program had been received and checked. Statistical presentation of the accomplishments under the program can be developed only through estimates by the officials of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, based on the data given in these applications. These data include figures on diversion of acreage from soil-depleting to soil-conserving crops, and on the extent of other soil-protecting and soil-conserving practices that have been carried out by farmers as a direct result of the program.

DROUGHT DAMAGED SOIL-CONSERVING CROPS

Drought, particularly in the Corn Belt States, killed not only many of the new plantings of soil-conserving crops, but also large acreages of established seedings of the same crops. At the same time it forced farmers to produce as much emergency forage and other feedstuffs as possible, in order to carry their livestock through the season, without regard to whether the welfare of the soil was impaired by this emergency cropping.

The soil-conservation program was effective in offsetting a part of the effect of the drought. It encouraged the selection of crops and the adoption of a farming system calculated to produce more feed in a bad year than would be produced if too large a proportion of the farm land were planted to clean-tilled, intensively cultivated crops which do not withstand drought well.

Time for planning an agricultural conservation program for 1936, and for enabling farmers to participate in the program, was too short. Many farmers had at least planned their year's operations, if they had not already begun them, when the Supreme Court decision of January 6, 1936, caused the termination of the production-adjustment programs of 1933-35. Amendments to the Soil Conservation Act of 1935, which comprised the legislative authority for the soil-conservation program of 1936, were not passed and approved until February 29, and the appropriations that made the program possible were not approved until March 19. Consequently the provisions of the 1936 program could not be officially announced until March 20, too late for many individual farmers to adjust their farm schemes for 1936 in order to participate in the program.

One very apparent development under the program is the largescale substitution of soil-conserving crops for soil-depleting crops. This substitution has long been a recognized principle of crop rotations designed primarily to check exhaustion of plant nutrients in the soil. Its importance in controlling and preventing soil erosion has been given new emphasis by the soil-conservation payments made under the 1936 program to farmers who practiced this diversion.

Balancing acreage on the individual farm between soil-depleting and soil-conserving crops has definitely served three ends: (1) It has reduced the rate of exhaustion of plant nutrients and soil productivity; (2) it has tended toward a better adjustment of national agricultural production to market demand; and (3) it has provided more acres of close-growing grasses and legumes which prevent rapid run-off of water, hold the soil in place, and lessen the destructiveness of floods. Effectiveness of such plantings in erosion control has had new recognition under the 1936 soil-conservation program.

Another important development has been the measures taken to improve soil fertility. These measures were made possible because farmers received payments to assist them in applying fertilizing material and lime to fields and pastures. In many areas such fertilizing or liming was necessary in order to establish soil-conserving crops.

Such land-management devices as terracing, contouring, gully control, and tree planting, to check and prevent soil erosion by wind or water, have been developed to a greater extent and at a more rapid rate under the 1936 program than they otherwise would have been, because payments to farmers, made under the program, enabled them to take these measures.

RESULTS SUMMARIZED

The following summaries of accomplishments under the 1936 agricultural conservation program, and exhibits 12 and 13 in appendix D (p. 193), giving data by States, are based upon estimates by officials of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, derived from reports by States on numbers of work sheets and applications filed, acreage involved in diversion and soil-building practice operations, and payments to cooperating farmers.

Sixty-seven percent, or more than 283,000,000 acres, of the total cropland in the United States was covered by applications for grants under the 1936 program.

Approximately 3,000,000 applications for grants, representing perhaps 4,000,000 farmers and based upon more than 4,200,000 work sheets, have been filed under the 1936 program. Since more than one farm operator or owner may sometimes sign a single work sheet or application, or a single operator or owner may sign more than one work sheet and application, neither the number of work sheets nor the number of applications necessarily represents the number of individuals or of farms concerned in the program.

The total acreage diverted from soil-depleting crops amounted to nearly 31,000,000 acres. Not all of this diversion was the direct result of the soil-conservation program. Drought destroyed large acreages of soil-depleting crops. In accordance with sound farmmanagement, farmers replaced these crops where possible with emergency, drought-resistant, soil-conserving crops. The program placed a limit upon the percentage of his soil-depleting acreage which an