Mr. ANDRESEN. Mr. Burtness, the poorest-looking wheat and the lowest grade, say grade No. 4, may have the highest amount of protein in it.

Mr. BURTNESS. That is the peculiar part of it; that is true. Sometimes you have real rusty wheat, light wheat, testing only 50 pounds to the bushel, and it is very high in protein content.

Mr. KETCHAM. I have understood right there is one of the very delightful fields of speculation.

Mr. BURTNESS. Of course in getting such grain for either milling or mixing purposes.

Mr. KETCHAM. For instance, to the millers the outward appearance does not concern them very much, but it is the real heart of it. Mr. BURTNESS. Exactly.

Mr. KETCHAM. Does the protein content have anything to do with futures on grain exchanges at all?

Mr. BURTNESS. No.

Mr. KETCHAM. It only has to do with cash wheat?

Mr. BURTNESS. Yes. Of course in trading in futures, or futures selling, or anything of that sort, if a delivery is to be made, naturally the fellow is going to deliver a wheat that is just barely good enough to reach that particular grade which is specified, that grade which may be the contract grade on any specific exchange.

Mr. KETCHAM. At the present time, does the protein content get into that as one of the requirements?

Mr. BURTNESS. Not at all.

Mr. ADKINS. Before you leave that, your increased high protein, there is not enough demand for that to affect quotations on cash wheat. Mr. BURTNESS. Not at all, except the cash wheat that is sold by the carload lot.

Mr. ADKINS. You take the corn, the moisture that affects the price is the per cent of moisture quoted in the quotation market. Take for instance No. 2 yellow, 15.40 per cent, 50 pounds, $1.04 a bushel, and you take No. 2, 54 pounds, and it is $1.10 a bushel. Your weight and moisture content is quoted with the quotations. But you take it on down on the same day on the wheat, 62 cars of wheat sold on the market, No. 2 red, $2.10, No. 3 red, $2.015. The point I want to get at is the high price for high protein wheat; there is such a demand for that that it does not affect the quotations for wheat on the general market.

Mr. BURTNESS. The fellow who is out to buy and to pay a big premium for high-protein wheat, of course, ordinarily has some wheat and he wants high protein wheat so as to be able to mix it with wheat of low protein content, so as to get a proper blend of flour, and he is willing to pay a price for it.

Mr. ADKINS. So it is not of enough importance to be considered in the daily quotations of cash wheat on the cash market.

Mr. BURTNESS. Not at all in so far as effect on low protein wheat is concerned. Before I close for to-day, perhaps I had better read into the record just one paragraph which I intended to quote upon this question of estimating protein without tests. I do not think it is necessary to prove it to you at all, but some say "Oh, well, the buyers know the protein content anyway," and here is an interesting report made by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, entitled "Correlation of Kernel Texture, Test Weight per Bushel, and Protein Content of Hard Red Spring Wheat," and on page 1149 I read this:

RELIABILITY OF PROTEIN ESTIMATES

On the basis of the samples used in this study, if one should employ these tables to estimate the protein content of wheat when the kernel texture and test weight are known, the probable error of the estimates would be 1.1; that is, one-half the estimates should be within 1.1 per cent lower or higher than the actual protein content. The standard error of estimate would be 1.7, and 68 per cent of the estimates should be within 1.7 per cent lower or higher than the actual protein content. That is, in 68 per cent of the samples, if the actual protein percentage was more than the estimate, it did not exceed it by more than 1.7 and if it was less than the estimate, it did not drop more than 1.7. These calculations are based on a uniform moisture content in the wheat.

Mr. ANDRESEN. It is now 12 o'clock and there are some important matters on the floor and we will have to adjourn. This bill is an important proposition; it affects every wheat-growing State in this country and I think, if you have certain matters to which you have called our attention, they should go in as part of the record, rather than as a reference to a public document.

Mr. BURTNESS. You would not want to insert long bulletins like this [indicating]?

Mr. ANDRESEN. No, but if there are some particular features in there so that we can have our attention called to them.

(The following are the exhibits submitted for the record by Mr. Burtness and which were referred to by him.)

Comparative tests between Duluth and Grand Forks on 15 cars during October, 1927, by Benson-Quinn Co., Grand Forks

Comparative tests between Minneapolis and Grand Forks on 15 cars during October, 1927, by Benson-Quinn Co., Grand Forks

(The committee thereupon adjourned further hearings on H. R. 106 until Tuesday, May 15, 1928, at 10 o'clock a. m.)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,

Tuesday, May 15, 1928.

The committee met 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Gilbert N. Haugen (chairman) presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. OLGER B. BURTNESS-Resumed

Mr. ANDRESEN. Mr. Burtness, I would like to have a full attendance of the committee to hear this discussion on your bill, but I do not want to delay the matter. I think before we take action, though, the full committee should have an opportunity to read the printed hearings, in view of the absence of some of the committee. This matter is of such importance it should have the consideration of all the members of the committee.

Mr. BURTNESS. Of course I am not here to say to the committee what its proceedings should be; that is purely a question for the committee.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I am merely making that as a suggestion; not with a view to delaying the matter.

Mr. BURTNESS. We had a very satisfactory attendance here the other day and of course, when the hearings have been completed, it will then be seen whether there is any substantial opposition to the bill or not. Personally I can not conceive of a situation where there can be any substantial opposition to the general purposes of the bill.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Before you start in with the conclusion of your statement, I would like to have you explain to the committee just how the bill would operate as to flax and wheat, starting in at the farm, the field of wheat or the field of flax on which the farmer wants to get a protein test.

Mr. BURTNESS. I will be very glad to do that. The situation in that respect under this bill would not be particularly different from what the situation is now. I will digress a little. I recall I was so anxious to get a protein test on one occasion that, even before the wheat was threshed, and while the wheat was still in the shock, I went out to the fields and threshed out a few heads out of one shock and then out of another, and went all over the field in that way so as to get a sample big enough to obtain a fair average of the fields for a protein test. Of course whether the sample is obtained in that way, or whether it is obtained after the wheat is actually threshed, is of no great moment. This, however, might be interesting to you, that the agricultural college, in our State, before the threshing season starts and in order to make a sort of general survey of the protein situation in the State, generally speaking, has county agents obtain sample bundles from various farms in the county and different communities in the country, and they send them into the agricultural college where the college, in turn, has the grain threshed out, so that they make a protein test down there earlier even than the threshing season starts. That is with a view of getting the earliest possible picture of the general protein situation. That is of great importance because of the fact, as I mentioned the other day, that some years protein is not of any particular market value, because the grain as a whole is of such a high protein content that the high protein wheat is not in demand; while, on the other hand, if the season has been such

as to produce a grain relatively low in protein content, then the grain which does have a high protein content demands a premium and a very large premium in the market. So, to answer your question more directly

Mr. JONES. Will the buyer pay any attention to a general test of the protein content? Won't the buyer who is going to make any difference in the price require a test of the particular wheat?

Mr. BURTNESs. Exactly; that is true. I was only giving the general picture of the importance of it and, while that is true, as I explained on Friday when it was impossible for you to be here, Mr. Jones, sometimes the general content of protein may be reflected in the price paid at certain stations; that is, the trade knows that from a specific station all the wheat that comes from that place is higher in protein content than the average and occasionally, though not the general rule, a higher price is paid at such stations, or for wheat coming from those stations.

Now, then, answering Mr. Andresen's question more specifically, all the farmer does if he wants to find out the exact protein content of his wheat, is to take a fair sample of his grain and have it tested. And it is true that the protein content may vary in different parts of the field, even, to some extent; but it varies particularly between different fields that may be on the same farm, depending upon what has been sown in that field in prior years. I touched on that on Friday, mentioning the effect of sweet clover, alfalfa, etc., in the rotation. At any rate, he just gets a little sample of that wheat and puts it into an envelope, such an envelope as is generally used by the grain trade for that purpose; or, better still, he uses an air-tight can and sends it in to any one of these laboratories. It does not make any difference whether the laboratory is conducted privately or conducted by the State. The test takes an hour or two. I know, for instance, that the private laboratory in Grand Forks renders this kind of service-they take the samples that come in that night and work them during the night and have the certificates ready in the morning to mail out before the mails leave the post office the next morning. I think the State laboratories do likewise.

Mr. JONES. When that farmer gets that certificate, what does he do with it?

Mr. BURTNESS. When that farmer gets that certificate, if such certificate shows that his grain is of a higher protein content than the wheat which demands no premium, he will then be in a position to deal with the buyer of his grain, whether it be the local elevator, whether it be the flour mill at a distance, or whether it be some other prospective buyer. He gets a certificate reading substantially to this effect, "I have examined such and such a sample and find such and such a protein content. He gets that now. What he would do up to that point under this bill, is absolutely no different from what he does now; but the difference is this, that under this bill he will get a certificate that is signed by a Federal inspector, by a Federal chemist, by a Federal licensee, and it will mean more to him because it has that Federal recognition. He will know that the test has been made in conformity with the rules and regulations that are laid down by the appeal laboratories of the Department of Agriculture and not in accordance with some individual notion that some individual chemist may have of the best way in which to perform the test.