portion, and, therefore, should be granted to the States without reduction of the amount that is made in the portions not requiring offset. I have prepared a letter for the Secretary to submit to the Comptroller General for a specific opinion on that point. Frankly, there is some doubt in my own mind as to which is the more equitable, just, and proper procedure under the Executive order. It would not make any difference in the total amounts of the saving, but it would make a difference to some States as to whether both the offset and nonoffset portions are reduced, or only the portion. with the offset requirement. Some of the States, because of reduced appropriations for the States and counties, are not now able to utilize all of the allotments to them because of their inability to offset the full amount allotted. Mr. HART. In that connection, there are quite a few counties where it has been discontinued through vote, or by the action of boards of supervisors in refusing to appropriate, are there not? Dr. WARBURTON. That did occur during a period of 2 or 3 years, up to last summer. Since the passage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the decision of the President and the Secretary to have the Extension Service carry out the provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, particularly as to the plans for crop production control, a very considerable number of new appropriations have been made by counties for the employment of county agricultural agents. Many of the counties which previously had discontinued that employment have taken it up again, so that during the past few months there has been a very decided increase in the number of counties employing agents. Those new agents necessarily are employed from funds allotted to the Extension Service by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. The direct extension appropriation was all utilized for the staff previously employed. ALLOTMENT FROM AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ADMINISTRATION Mr. SANDLIN. The explanatory notes contain a detailed account of the allotments from the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, which will be inserted in the record at this point. (The matter referred to is as follows:) The Extension Service is cooperating with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in carrying out the campaigns for production control, especially the educational phases of these campaigns. Extension workers explain to farmers the purposes of the production-control campaigns, the extent to which they affect producers, the agreements which it is proposed that farmers shall enter into, and similar points that may be helpful to producers in arriving at a conclusion as to whether or not they desire to cooperate in the program. Extension workers organize the campaigns in the various States, set up county and community campaign committees, train these committeemen so that they are able to present the plan to other farmers, assist farmers in filling out and executing contracts and in all other ways make certain that every farmer has an opportunity to have a thorough understanding of the production-control plans for the commodity in which he is interested. Extension workers also assist in the formulation and operation of county control associations, in the delivery of checks covering rental and benefit payments, and similar matters, acting as a general field-contact force for the adjustment program. In order that the Agricultural Adjustment Administration might have a trained local representative in every important agricultural county, it was necessary to supplement the existing force of county agricultural agents through the employment of approximately 700 emergency agents. As available Federal, State, and county funds were already fully utilized in financing the staff previously emploved མ ས ་ ་ the cost of these additional agents necessarily fell almost entirely on the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. State and county extension workers in all States in which important productioncontrol campaigns have been conducted have given practically their entire time to the adjustment work, including specialists in many lines not directly covered by adjustment programs, these specialists having been temporarily transformed into supervisors or otherwise engaged in production-control activities. The largest item of expense in the production control campaigns is the employment of county and community committeemen, who present the control plans at local meetings or to individual farmers, and who make the inspections of farms of contract signers to see that provisions of the contract are carried out. While payment to these committeemen is nominal, being little more than the cost to them of operating their automobiles in traveling from farm to farm, the large number necessarily employed brings the total cost to a high figure. The payments to committeemen on the wheat, corn-hog, and certain of the tobacco production control campaigns are made by deductions from benefit payments to the farmers in the county in which they serve, these payments being made by the County Production Control Association, and not by the Extension Service. The funds here under discussion for payment to committeemen, $4,584,285, represent the cost of the services of these committeemen on the 1933 and the 1934-35 cotton campaigns, and on certain of the tobacco control campaigns. At the request of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, payment of these committeemen is handled by the Extension Service so that nearly half of the total amount here under discussion will be utilized for this purpose. The remainder, slightly more than $5,100,000, provides for the employment of such additional extension workers as may be necessary to present the production control plans in all important agricultural counties, for the employment of clerical help in county agent offices, to assist farmers in executing their contracts, for extra travel by State and county workers incident to the conduct of these campaigns, and for all other expenses which are properly a part of the educational work. During the year the Agricultural Adjustment Administration has had the full cooperation of the Extension Service in all States in which production control campaigns have been conducted. During the period July to October, allotments from the Agricultural Adjustment Administration were made by commodity. These funds were utilized in the employment of emergency agricultural assistants, the payment of travel for both regular and emergency agents, necessary supplies, rent of equipment, telegraph and telephone charges, etc. Under this procedure, reimbursement to the States for traveling expenses, supplies, etc., assumed such proportion as to delay settlement, and it was then determined that a lump sum allotment of Agricultural Adjustment Administration funds to the Extension Service would be made for the period November 1, 1933 to June 30, 1934, this fund to be utilized insofar as practicable for payment of salaries, a limited amount of travel, and some telegraph charges. This plan is being worked out in harmony with the cooperative arrangements heretofore in effect between the State colleges and the Department on regular extension work, and fits into the general extension plan of operation in a very satisfactory manner. Allotments from the Agricultural Adjustment Administration aggregating $9,693,089 have been made as follows: Allotment of funds from July 1, 1933 to October 31, 1933. Total... $6, 457, 520 3, 235, 569 9, 693, 089 Table no. 5 shows the allotment of Agricultural Adjustment Administration funds under the first plan (by commodity) and also the allotments under the new plan (lump sum, with estimated breakdown by commodity) together with the estimated total for each States for the full year. TABLE 5.-Allotments of A.A.A. funds by States transferred to Extension Service [For period July 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934] Individual commodity proj- Combined Budget Nov. 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934 Personal services are subject to 15 percent legislative reduction in compensation. NOTE--Of the allotment July to October 1933, for cotton work, approximately $2,091,000 was for employBest of committeemen. Of the allotment November 1933 to June 1934, it is estimated that approximately $2,293,285 will be expended for employment of committeemen on cotton work and $100,000 for the same purpose on tobacco work. WHEAT ACREAGE REDUCTION PROGRAM Mr. HART. Do you not think that if a wholly new personnel had been employed to sell the crop-reduction program it would have been more effective than it has been. Mr. WARBURTON. I think that the cost would have been very much greater, and that it would have been much less effectively done. 35962-34-6 I think I have good reason for saying that, because we have had the opportunity to compare the results which were obtained in counties which regularly employed county agricultural agents, and which had experienced men on the job, and the results obtained in counties in which agents were not regularly employed. Mr. HART. They were all under the Extension Service, were they not? Dr. WARBURTON. Yes, sir. Mr. HART. Under the same director? Dr. WARBURTON. They were. Mr. JUMP. That would have brought about two Extension Services, and would have resulted in confusion and conflicts out in the counties. Mr. SINCLAIR. The counties in my State that dispensed with the agents were inefficient in the way in which they made the surveys. Of course, they are hollering now, wanting to know why they do not get their checks Mr. HART. Some of them have been hollering because they are not getting their extension checks, and the Extension Service people have been hollering because they were not getting their expenses. That is natural, I suppose, due to the huge congestion. Mr. SINCLAIR. In a number of counties, they had their reports sent back and forth for correction as many as two or three times. Mr. HART. Why was that? Mr. SINCLAIR. Because the reports were not correctly made. Mr. HART. I have had reports where the extension agents were used in the wheat-production program, showing that the reports were sent back and forth several times for correction. They were handled by the county extension agents, and they were complaining because they could not get their expense accounts. They complained that they had laid out money for gasoline and other travel expenses, and could not get their expense accounts paid. Now, this report adjusted to December 1, 1933, shows an actual reduction of only 4 percent. Mr. SINCLAIR. Do you mean crop production? Mr. HART. The acreage reduction is shown to have been 4 percent. If the producers of wheat had been informed that if production was increased, they would receive a very low price for wheat, and that the benefits would accrue to those who signed the contract, the result would have been different. If they had been properly informed about that, they would never have produced wheat in the way they have done. In my State, the record shows about 114, and I think that estimate is very low. I believe it is from 125 to 130. I have checked that in a number of townships. Some of their figures are different. A lot of people are concealing their sowings. I think the Department has done a good job in collecting these figures. Mr. SINCLAIR. Do you not think that the correction will be made when the next year's crop comes in? Of course, that is another question. Suppose we do have another great wheat surplus; th price will go down, and, consequently, the people who have signed these contracts will get from 30 to 40 cents over the market price. while the other man who did not sign will get considerably less. That will tend to discourage him from growing wheat another year. If the market is 50 cents, and the man who signed the contract is receiving 80 cents or 85 cents, while the other people who did not sign the contract are getting 50 cents, it will be a discouragement to those who are outside the fold. Mr. HART. My viewpoint is this, that if these people fail to sell this program, and we get a low price for wheat, and a low price for everything else, we will have a dissatisfied agriculture. On the other hand, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration will be charged with taxing the people of the cities 100 percent on their bread and 100 percent on their cotton. Before we get that far, they will have kicked the Administration out. That is why I am criticizing the work of this extension service. If they fail to do a proper job, then the Agricultural Adjustment Administration will meet with trouble in the next session of Congress. They have certainly failed to do a good job up to this time. Dr. WARBURTON. Are you comparing the 1933 winter wheat acreage with 1932, or the average for 3 years, which was the basis? Mr. HART. I took 1932. Dr. WARBURTON. The 1932 acreage was lower than the acreage for either 1930 or 1931. The wheat reduction campaign was for the purpose of reducing the acreage from the average acreage sown in 1930, 1931, and 1932, which was nearly 1,000,000 acres more than the 1932 acreage; so that instead of showing a reduction from 1932 of 1,690,000 acres, the comparison should be made with the average for 1930, 1931, and 1932, when the average was 43,460,000 acres. Therefore, the reduction accomplished in winter wheat was, on the basis of those figures, 2,460,000 acres. That, I admit, is quite a ways from 15 percent. Naturally not all of the farmers have signed. East of the Mississippi River comparatively few signed, and for a very good reason. Many farmers during the period of lower prices in 1931 and 1932 had gone out of wheat production entirely, or had practically gone out of it. Last year at the harvest season the price of wheat was comparatively high, and it was fairly good at seeding time. A considerable number of farmers in the eastern part of the United States who formerly grew a few acres of wheat, but who had gone out of wheat production in 1930, 1931, and 1933, sowed wheat last fall, either because of the higher price which then prevailed, or for the purpose of producing wheat for their own use, thus avoiding the paying of the processing tax on the wheat that the family used." There was quite a lot of that, and it affected the total acreage east of the Mississippi River. The big reduction, naturally, was in the wheat belt, in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. A further reduction will be shown, I am sure, when the spring wheat figures are available from the Dakotas and Montana, so that these figures represent only a part of the result of the campaign. Mr. HART. Winter wheat represents the big wheat crop. Dr. WARBURTON. Yes, sir; it represents at least two thirds of the total production. Now, taking the Kansas figures Mr. CANNON (interposing). Suppose you take the Missouri figures. Do you have them? Dr. WARBURTON. Yes, sir. Missouri shows hardly no decrease from the 3-year average. For 1930, the acreage was 1,605,000; for |