Mr. SCRUGHAM. Yes, sir. I would like to read from a number of letters which I have received asking for the restoration of the appropriation.

One letter states that among the things accomplished by their station was to find a root stock for stone fruit that counteracted the short life condition of the old root stock. It is stated that they have been successful in their experimental investigation.

One of the other things they have done relates to the water supply, which is referred to in one of these letters. Recently the Federal land banks were becoming quite skeptical about loans on the lands in that area due to the rising water tables, and the thing that saved the issue in that connection was data made available by the local experiment station, covering studies that they had made of underground waters. The station had weekly records of 80 or more wells, extending over 12 years. By means of that data supplied by the local experiment station, they were able to show that a remedy could be provided and the loans were made in several instances.

I have mentioned only two examples of the work, but there are a large number of instances I could cite showing the benefits derived by the people from the work of the experiment stations. They are of great benefit to the farmers on the Newlands project. They do not, because of this work, produce additional crops that in any way compete with eastern or midwestern agriculture. The consumption of the crops produced in that area is almost entirely local.

I want to urge the restoration of the appropriation, which, I understand, totals only $80,000 for all of the stations.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1934.

EXPERIMENTAL STATION, GARDEN CITY, KANS.

STATEMENT OF HON. CLIFFORD R. HOPE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF KANSAS

Mr. SANDLIN. Mr. Hope, we will be glad to hear you at this time. Mr. HOPE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I will be as brief as I can, and, in order to make the best use of the time I have, I think I will confine my remarks to my own observation of the work at one of these stations with which I am familiar. I happen to live at Garden City, Kans., at which place is located one of the stations in question.

Mr. SANDLIN. That is a dry-land station, is it not?

Mr. HOPE. Yes. The work is done cooperatively, the expense being borne partly by the State and partly by the Federal Government. I have had an opportunity, ever since the station was established back in 1909, to observe what it has done and the effect that it has had on farm practices and operations in that section of the country. This section has an average rainfall of less than 20 inches per year, and the limiting factor in crop production is, of course, moisture or the lack of moisture. This station has devoted a large part of its work to the development of crops which will grow with a small supply of moisture and to methods of tillage and cultivation that will conserve moisture. I have in mind several different lines of work in

which they have been engaged. I think that perhaps the most important has been the experiments which they have made as to the necessary moisture content of the soil at the time of planting to insure a crop of wheat. We grow winter wheat out in that section. The experiments which have been conducted at Garden City, Hays, and other stations in this great plains area, have demonstrated that unless you have approximately 20 percent of moisture in the first 3 feet of the soil at seeding time there is going to be some question as to whether you will mature a wheat crop the next year. If you have less than that, the crop will have to depend very largely upon the amount of moisture that falls after seeding time; whereas if there is 20 percent or more of moisture in the soil at seeding time, barring hail or some like calamity, you practically have a wheat crop assured. That has been very well demonstrated by the work which has been done at these stations. One of the publications of the Department of Agriculture is the result of the joint work of one of the young men at this station, and another at Hays, Kans., on this question of the necessary amount of soil moisture, and on this subject they have written quite a pamphlet, discussing all of the experiments along this line. I might say that quite a large proportion of farmers out in that section of the country have accepted those results as being authoritative, and they are following that practice in their farm operations.

Now, along with that, there has been the development of the summer fallowing practice in that country, in growing wheat and grain sorghum. As a result of the experimental work which has been done along that line it has been definitely demonstrated that definite benefits may be expected from using summer fallow as a regular rotation practice. It has been demonstrated that by the use of summer fallowing it is ordinarily possible to store a sufficient amount of moisture in the ground at seeding time to insure a crop the following year. I can remember when the usual practice of continuous cropping in that country, sometimes resulted in a good crop and sometimes did not, but as a result of the use of summer fallowing I think it can be said that ordinarily a farmer can have a wheat crop every year if he will practice summer fallowing; that is, if he will fallow a part of his land and farm a part of it. That practice has stabilized farming in that region to a very great degree.

Mr. SANDLIN. You say that has been the result of experiments conducted at this station?

Mr. HOPE. Undoubtedly, that started it. Now, here is what is done at this station in order to make the results available to the public: Every year there is held what is called a field day, usually early in September. They ask the farmers and anyone else interested to come in and see the results of their work. They show how much was produced on a given plot of ground, under certain conditions, and how much was produced on a similar plot under different conditions, and so forth; showing the conditions under which the soil was prepared, how much seed was sown, and the conditions under which it was grown. Of course, all of the farmers in the country roundabout do not attend the meetings, or witness the demonstrations, but many representative farmers do attend. They are impressed with what they have seen, and go home and put the practices into operation on their own farms. If they are successful, their neighbors observe it, and the result is that after a period of 4 or 5 years these improved methods

will be quite generally adopted, and you will see a great deal of change taking place in the farming methods followed in that locality.

Mr. SANDLIN. Do you think your problem will be solved by that work?

Mr. HOPE. Yes, sir; undoubtedly it will solve many of our most pressing problems. I might call attention to one type of work which is of great importance and that is the development of a grain sorghum which could be harvested by the use of a combine, or a threshing machine which, as you understand, harvests and threshes in one operation. Wheat is harvested in that manner throughout all that region, but until very recently it has not been possible to harvest grain sorghums, which is the other important crop in that country, in that way. The difficulty was that grain sorghums have crooked necks, the heads would hang down, and there was no standard height. Some of the stalks would be high and some low, so that you could not cut off the heads and thresh them with a combine. The crop had to be harvested with a header or binder and then threshed, which was a very unsatisfactory method. At this Garden City station, they have been carrying on experiments looking to the development of a type of grain sorghum which will have a mean height throughout the entire field-growing straight, without crooknecks, so that the crop may be harvested with a combine.

Now, they have developed what appears to be a well-defined strain of sorghum meeting these specifications. Of course, they want a little more time to see that it will breed true, and that it will be entirely acceptable. So far a great deal of progress has been made along that line, and that is one of the important things they are working on now, not only at Garden City, but at other stations in that region, notably at Hays, Kans., and Woodward, Okla.

Another thing they have been working on in recent years is the development of livestock feeding in that country. The farmers have been grazing their stock out there, and shipping it further east for finishing, but now they are doing a great deal of work at the station in evolving the best method of feeding the grains which are produced out there, consisting mostly of sorghums, such as kaffir and milo. They do not produce much corn, but it is a wonderful country for grain sorghums, which are the most drought-resistant grains I know of.

I might mention many other things which have been accomplished, but I must not take up too much of your time, since there are many others who want to be heard on this subject. I want to conclude by saying, however, that I think the greatest benefit which has come to the farming industry in that part of the country as a result of the work of this station has been the development of better general farm methods and a more balanced type of agriculture. The tendency in that region is to raise some cash crop which is easy to raise, and which takes a comparatively small amount of time. As a farm practice, that is not satisfactory, and it is economically unsound to depend upon a single cash crop, such as wheat, particularly when there are occasional failures, and the sole endeavor of this experiment station at Garden City, with which I am familiar, has been to bring about a balanced type of farming, or a diversified agriculture.

While it might be contended that this activity has resulted in an increased production, I do not think that statement is borne out by the facts. As a matter of fact, it has resulted, I think, in a decrease

in the production of what we call surplus crops, such as wheat because these stations have emphasized a balanced and more self-sustaining type of farming. The development of wheat growing in that section has been rather in spite of the work of this station than because of it and as a result of the work of this and similar stations farmers are beginning to realize that it was a mistake to depend on a one-crop type of farming exclusively. I know that the farmers out there have now gotten to the point where they have great respect for what these stations are doing. There was a time when they questioned the value of this work. There was a time when they rather sneered at it, but they do not do it now. They are following these new methods now, because they realize their value. When one farmer follows the improved methods, other farmers in the neighborhood, seeing the results, take them up too.

It seems to me that when the farming industry is going through a transition period, as it is at this time, we ought to have more instead of less experimentation. We must make some adjustments. There is no question about that. We must cut down our farm acreage in this country, and we must farm more efficiently. For that reason, we have reached a point where research work is more important than it ever was before.

Now, if the appropriations for the support of these stations are eliminated this year, they will have to be restored at some time. I do not think we can completely ignore this work, or its importance. If the work is cut down or eliminated for a year, we will lose a lot of the results that you can only get through the continuity of the work and in the end the cost will be greater than if the work is continued as has been the case.

Mr. SINCLAIR. You do not believe that these lands are of the submarginal type, do you?

Mr. HOPE. No. I had not intended to go into that question, because I did not wish to take so much of the time of the committee. Of course, there is some land in that section of the country which is submarginal, as there is in every section, but, generally speaking, crops can be produced more cheaply upon this land than in any other section of the country today.

Mr. SINCLAIR. It is as capable of being used in a successful agriculture as any other lands in the country.

Mr. HOPE. I do not think there is any question about that. Those lands of which I speak produce crops at an extremely low cost, and with great efficiency.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Of course, the experience that you have had at this Kansas station would not be exactly the same experience obtained at other stations. You cannot use the same methods there that should be used, for instance, at Mr. Ayers' station or my station in the spring wheat area.

Mr. HOPE. No; I think that every one of those stations was established in a particular area in order to deal with problems which were peculiar to that area.

Mr. SINCLAIR. Each one of them is needed to deal with the particular problems of the area in which they are located.

Mr. HOPE. Yes; each one has its own individual problems.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1934.

DRY LAND EXPERIMENT STATIONS

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD T. TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, the Members of the House from the Western States feel that the Bureau of the Budget has treated us unreasonably harsh in the reductions that have been made pertaining to our agricultural activities. In other words, we cannot resist the feeling that the effort to reduce agricultural production has imposed an entirely unreasonable burden upon the Western States. The farmers of the intermountain Western States have such a highly discouraging and in fact prohibitively high freight rate and express rate to pay upon everything we produce that the entire production of the eight intermountain Western States that I am assuming the liberty to speak for does not come in competition with the agricultural produce of the country to any appreciable extent whatever. I have forgotten the exact figures but from recollection I would say that of the entire agricultural produce of our country less than 1 percent of it comes from those States to the markets of the country. We are required to ship everything we produce from 1,000 to 15,000 miles to reach a market either on the Pacific coast or the Gulf of Mexico or to Chicago. The farmers and stockmen of our western region are having a desperately hard time to maintain their homes and continue to live and develop that country.

Our mines when they were working years ago furnished a market for our ranchmen and our country was prosperous. But since mining during recent years has reached such a low ebb, in fact almost entirely discontinued in many localities, and what were once referred to as splendid and thriving mining cities are now referred to as ghost towns. These agricultural experiment stations have been of wonderful assistance to our people in educating them as to what kind of products are profitably raised and how and when they should be planted and how irrigated and that educational work is just beginning to produce splendid beneficial results in the development of that great western empire. It has been the means of preventing an enormous amount of loss and waste of energy and seed and labor and our people have been taught a great deal that they never could have learned excepting from these agricultural experiment stations. The expense of these stations is comparatively trifling considering the amount of good they are doing. That small expenditure made by the Government encourages those people tremendously. They feel that Uncle Sam is taking an interest in their welfare and we very much indeed want to see it continued.

Mr. SANDLIN. They expect to live there.

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes; they want to continue to live there. All of the eight States of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, that I have the honor to represent on the Policy Committee of the House, commonly called the "Steering Committee", are affected in the same way. All of them will be seriously injured if the appropriations for these experiment stations are

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