In addition, the diversion payments include an average of $3 per acre for increases in acreage of soil-conserving crops above the soil-conserving base. The maximum acreage on which this payment is proposed is the acreage diverted for payment from the general soildepleting base. On farms for which a corn acreage limit is established this rate is increased 5 percent.

In the Northeast and East Central Regions and in most of the Southern Region, these two payments are combined into one payment of $9 per acre, with a deduction of $3 per acre for failure to match the acreage diverted from soil-depleting crops with an increased acreage of soil-conserving crops. In the Great Plains Region and in the Mountain and Pacific States, $3 for each acre diverted from the general base will be added to the "soil-building allowance", which is the total amount that can be earned by adopting soil-building practices.

The rates for diversion from the cotton, tobacco, and peanut soildepleting base and the maximum limit of diversion from the base for which payment will be made in 1937 are as follows: Cotton, 5 cents per pound, with a maximum acreage diversion limit of 35 percent; flue-cured, Burley, and Maryland tobaccos, 5 cents per pound, with a maximum acreage diversion limit of 25 percent; fire-cured and dark air-cured tobacco, 31⁄2 cents per pound, with a diversion limit of 30 percent; Georgia-Florida type 62 tobacco, 6 cents per pound, with a diversion limit of 30 percent; Connecticut Valley types 51 and 52 tobacco, 4 cents per pound, with a diversion limit of 15 percent; other kinds of tobacco, 3 cents per pound, with a diversion limit of 25 percent; peanuts, 14 cents per pound, with a diversion limit of 15 percent. The rice and sugar payments are at the same rates as in

1936.

The rates for approved soil-building practices such as liming, terracing, reforestation, and seeding some soil-building crops are to be established for states and regions and are in line with those of 1936. For 1937 the administrative expenses of all county agricultural conservation associations will be deducted from the payments to farmers in their respective counties. Under the 1936 program the county administrative expenses were deducted in the North Central, East Central, and Western Regions, but in the Southern and Northeast Regions were paid out of general administrative funds.

THE 1937 RANGE-IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM

The 1937 program for range lands in the livestock grazing regions. of the West and Southwest, is similar to the 1936 program, except that the maximum range-building allowance which can be earned for a given ranch is limited to $1.50 per animal unit of the normal carrying capacity of the ranch; the program applies to the range areas in the Southern and North Central Regions as well as in the Western Region; and deferred grazing, an additional practice or method of earning payment, has been added. Deferred grazing consists of protecting a given unit or section of the range on any ranch throughout the growing season in order that a maximum seed crop may be obtained from the natural forage plants. The protected areas may be grazed in the winter after the grass seed has matured, or it may be used the next spring. This practice is expected to be especially helpful in encouraging natural reseeding, and if the protected areas are rotated from year to year, should assist ranchers to improve their forage stand without materially affecting the number of livestock carried."

CHAPTER 2

ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION

Creation of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration within the United States Department of Agriculture was authorized in section 10 (a) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act approved May 12, 1933. Under the authority of that act the production-adjustment programs of 1933-35, and marketing-agreement, surplus-removal, disease-eradication, and other programs were administered by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Since January 6, 1936, activities not affected by the Supreme Court decision of that date have been administered as originally. Measures for liquidating the productionadjustment and other programs terminated because of that decision have also been carried out.

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration, following the approval of the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act on February 29, 1936, was made responsible for executing the powers conferred upon the Secretary of Agriculture in sections 7 to 17 of that act. This was in accordance with section 13 of the act, which authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to designate the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to execute these powers.

Sections 7 to 17 of the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act cover the agricultural conservation program of 1936 and the research and planning in connection with programs for succeeding

years.

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration includes both Washington and field organizations. It is headed by an Administrator, who is responsible to the Secretary of Agriculture for all activities of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and who is assisted by such advisers, specialists, and other assistants as he finds necessary.

I. WASHINGTON ORGANIZATION

Within the Washington organization there is established, for administering the agricultural conservation program, a regional division for each of five main agricultural regions in the continental United States, and for the insular region. These regions are differentiated principally by the different types of farming carried on within them. Each regional division is under a director with such assistants and technical specialists as are required. Marketing agreements and surplus-removal programs are administered in the Division of Marketing and Marketing Agreements.

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REGIONAL DIVISIONS

The regional divisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration are as follows:

The Northeast Division, for the region comprising the States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The East Central Division, for the region comprising the States of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The Southern Division, for the region comprising the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas.

The North Central Division, for the region comprising the States of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

The Western Division, for the region comprising the States of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

In addition to these divisions that cover the programs for the continental United States, the Insular Division, under its director, is in charge of Agricultural Adjustment Administration activities in Puerto Rico and the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii.

The Marketing and Marketing Agreement Division, under a director, is in charge of marketing programs, surplus-removal programs, and programs designed to expand and develop both foreign and domestic uses and markets for agricultural products.

The Division of Finance, under its director, is charged with accounting responsibilities in connection with commodity loans and with cotton-option payments. The Director of this Division serves ex officio as treasurer of the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation. Responsibility for general budgeting activities, records and accounts, field audits and field accounts, and administrative audits is concentrated under an assistant to the Administrator.

The Program Planning Division, under a director, conducts studies and researches to provide the basis for scientific planning of long-time soil conservation and other programs, and for coordinating these programs into a sound long-time system of land use that will effectuate the purposes of the acts under which the Agricultural Adjustment Administration operates.

The Consumers' Counsel Division, under the Consumers' Counsel, concerns itself with matters relating to the interests of consumers of agricultural products as those interests are affected by various programs planned or undertaken by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

The Division of Information is responsible for the preparation and dissemination of information on the various activities of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and on the agricultural problems attacked through those activities. This Division, under its director, also makes reports, maintains permanent records, handles correspondence, and is in charge of the printing done by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.

II. ORGANIZATION IN THE FIELD

In addition to the Washington organization there are employees and officials of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the field. Certain administrative activities, such as filling out work sheets, checking performance under the programs, and examining and auditing applications for grants under the agricultural conservation program, are carried on in the field.

Each marketing agreement program is administered within the territory which it covers, by representatives of the industry concerned, with the advice and assistance of field representatives of the Marketing and Marketing Agreement Division. Diversion and other surplusremoval programs are likewise administered. The representatives of the industry include both growers and dealers, the growers having committees of their own which are an integral part of the administrative organization. Where growers have marketing cooperatives these are also represented on the dealers' committees. The growers' and dealers' committees together constitute the governing body of the agreement, subject to approval of the Secretary of Agriculture. Committees of growers have also given effective service in connection with the surplus-removal and diversion programs.

In 1936 there was set up in each State an agricultural conservation office, under supervision of the director of its regional division, in Washington, executing considerable administrative responsibility and authority within its own State. In these offices there are coordinated the determinations of soil-depleting bases and normal yields or productivity indexes recommended by county and local committees, and other functions in local and State administration of the 1936 agricultural conservation program.

In addition to State administrative matters these State offices, in the Southern, North Central, and Western divisions, include personnel engaged in examining applications for grants and certifying them for payment. They also include auditing personnel under the supervision of the General Accounting Office of the United States. who preaudit all applications for grants in connection with the program, from producers within the State concerned. These applications are then forwarded to the nearest regional disbursing office of the United States Treasury where checks for the producers are made out and mailed. For the East Central and Northeast divisions these examining and auditing functions are performed in Washington. From the beginning of the agricultural adjustment program in 1933 the State agricultural extension services of the State land-grant colleges have cooperated with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in its field operations. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration has relied primarily upon the Extension Service for distribution of information to farmers and in some regions for clerical and administrative work in connection with both the productionadjustment and agricultural conservation programs. This cooperation between the two agencies of the United States Department of Agriculture has been continued through 1936.

National farm organizations have cooperated with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in collecting and presenting farmers' views, opinions, and wishes as programs are formulated.

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III. FARMER PARTICIPATION IN PLANNING PROGRAMS

Farmers in every farming area have opportunity to participate, and do participate, in planning the programs carried out by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and in determining the provisions of those programs. Participation in the programs themselves is wholly voluntary on the part of farmers, who decide for themselves whether they wish to adopt the soil conserving farm-management system which will qualify them to receive payments under the provisions of the program after it has been adopted.

In 1936, because the agricultural conservation program for that year could not be announced until late in the season it was impossible to obtain as much participation by individual farmers in planning the program, as would otherwise have been desirable. Regional meetings were held, however, and farmers were called to Washington to discuss the program in general, to present the problems, situations, and viewpoints of their various regions, and to represent the interest of the farmers in those regions.

During 1936 it has been possible to obtain a greater degree of individual participation by farmers in planning the program for 1937, and this program-planning activity has been one of the principal phases of the work of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in 1936.

The county planning project through which data, estimates, and recommendations were obtained in 1935 and 1936 from farmers in some 2,400 agricultural counties, is discussed on pages 25 to 27. In addition, during the preparation of the 1937 program, meetings of farmers were held in hundreds of communities. The findings and recommendations developed in these meetings were forwarded through the county organizations to the State offices and thence to Washington. Further regional meetings for coordinating and sifting the recommendations from communities, counties, and States have been held, and the entire process culminated in a national program, in the planning of which each region and each type of farming was represented by farmers themselves or by farm specialists.

COUNTY AGRICULTURAL CONSERVATION ASSOCIATIONS

There are 2,711 county agricultural conservation associations organized in all regions except the Northeast, where such associations are being formed for the 1937 program. These organizations are formed under articles of association approved by the Secretary of Agriculture, and with an estimated membership of nearly 4% million producers. Through these associations definite administrative, advisory, and other functions with regard to the program in the county, are delegated to officers and committeemen selected by farmers themselves.

Table 4 shows by States the number of county agricultural conservation associations formed in 1936, and the number of members of such associations, estimated on the basis of the applications made for grants under the program.