DISPOSAL VALUES OF ANIMALS AND ANIMAL PRODUCTS, middlebury, VT. (HORSES, Mr. BUCHANAN. There is an item of sheep and goat work on here. Mr. SHEETS. There is not much for me to say. We have not anything new that we can do. Our problem is frankly to keep within this reduced appropriation and not cut off the work at these stations where the work is being done; we have tried to meet the demand without eliminating the work. That has been done to a point where I fear it will mean the elimination of certain stations entirely. QUESTION OF OVERPRODUCTION AS RESULT OF ACTIVITIES OF AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT Mr. HART. In a general way, and not criticizing the bureau or the department, but in a general way it often occurs to me-I may not be correct that all this work with experiment stations probably stimulates production on the farm, increases production per man or per unit, which eventually results in over production stimulated by the tax-payers' money, and then the farmer is left with overproduction on his hands and demoralized conditions. That is a through that often occurs to me when we are spending these millions. For instance, take in you hog work, your sheep work, you improve the methods. I will concede that. You show them how to cut down their losses and get the type better and all that sort of thing. We speed up production and as a result we have demoralization due to overproduction. Mr. SHEETS. We have along with that a more efficient and more economical system enabling the efficient farmer to receive greater returns for his investment and labor. Mr. HART. I concede all that. I know you do. But in the end the farmer is suffering from overproduction. He is producing more than the markets will take. Mr. SUMMERS. Suffering from to much efficiency. Mr. HART. I do not believe in spending the taxpayers' money to bring that about. That is the only objection I have to it. If it is a natural evolution, well and good. We make appropriations here from year to year to stimulate production, and then in the end we get demoralization. I am speaking from a practical standpoint. I own 800 acres. Mr. BUCHANAN. Suppose we do not develop these efficiency methods and other countries do? They would produce cheap. Our products would be expensive. In order to preserve the American market you Democrats would have to vote for a tariff to keep them out. Mr. HART. We are on an export basis on every one of these items and have been. Mr. BUCHANAN. You would not be long if we did not keep up with the times and had archiac methods and disease. Mr. HART. There is very little of this work which has been carried on for 20 years, and we were exporting 20 years ago. Go back 20 years and you wipe out practically all this work. Your extension service is gone and your cooperative stuff is practically all out. Twenty years ago we were exporting and getting good prices for our stuff. Mr. BUCHANAN. I want our people to have the most efficient, scientific, and expert methods of production and reproduction of any people in the world. Mr. HART. And then have Germany and France put us on a quota system. Mr. SHEETS. All of the projects have as their object the solution of natural or large regional problems. They were undertaken because of the demand from farmers and representatives of the livestock industry and have as their objective the solution of problems which should enable them to make greater returns and provide a better living on their farms. Mr. HART. That is comparable with a condition I am up against now as the successor to a very fine gentleman who died in service, my predecessor. His people up there wanted an elaborate post office and he got it in and got it approved. They have a very fine limestone building there. It carried the load in 1929, and now they come along and they are about to tear it down. They demanded it, but when I am confronted by a big petition signed by all the business men--they do not want that torn down and they do not want any post officethey come in and ask for the stuff and generally some Congressman makes himself popular by going and getting for them an experimental station. Mr. BUCHANAN. If Mr. Sheets and his co-laborers enable the stock raisers to produce more efficiently and more cheaply, then they can sell cheaper to the consumers and still make a profit; you bring within the reach of even the poor the ability to get these products, however good they may be, which is not within their ability if you have the old system of high cost of production; in other words, you lower the price to the consumer by the producer producing with economy. It goes through the whole social system, and it is the duty of the Nation to produce as cheaply as possible so those people can live as cheaply as possible. Perhaps I should say, get the necessities of life as cheaply as possible. Mr. HART. Let me answer that. If your price only went down in direct proportion to your lowered cost, I would have no objection; but when we are already producing a surplus, and you increase the surplus, your price does not go down in direct proportion. It goes down geometrically. Mr. BUCHANAN. You are dealing now with the law of economics on marketing. Then another thing, Mr. Hart, you have a surplus now. We may have a seasonal surplus or yearly surplus for 15 or 20 years, but the time is coming when agriculture will fail to supply the actual 'needs of the Nation. Mr. HART. But nobody around this table will be here. Doctor Woods. There is no actual surplus in the world now if it were properly distributed. It is the system of distribution which has broken down. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON THE GROWING, SLAUGHTER, AND Mr. SHEETS. There was one item that was referred to by Doctor Warburton which shows an increased demand for assistance the past year. That was the increased demand for information on how to grow, slaughter, and cure meat on the farm in the "Live at Home Program." Cutting up and curing meat on the farm became almost a lost art in many farm communities. The old smokehouse has disappeared from many farms. Others have never known the art. Necessity has caused many farmers who have the time and the land to grow hogs, fatten them, slaughter them, cut up and cure the meat, then eat the ham and bacon; this meat is as nutritious when hogs are 4 cents a pound as when they are 10 cents. If he is selling hogs it is very discouraging if the price is so low. If he does not have the money to buy the meat or other foods, but raises his livestock, makes his garden and fruit crop, he and his family are provided with food as good as money can buy. Mr. HART. I concede that, but I do not think it is within the province of the Federal Government to be the parent to that individual. In other words, if he wants to fix his ham and bacon, if he does not know how, he can find out in his surrounding community, because you can hardly go into any community that you will not find somebody that is using the smokehouse. Mr. SHEETS. There are many States where such information was not available and has been in great demand from farmers. Mr. HART. He can get a bulletin. Mr. BUCHANAN. Where does he get the bulletin and who writes it? Mr. HART. His agricultural college. Mr. BUCHANAN. The people who have done the research work write it. Mr. HART. They are going to set up another agency to teach them how to smoke their own hams. As far as the bulletin is concerned, the farmer can get all the bulletins he wants. Mr. BUCHANAN. I do not know if they have a better method of curing meat on the farm than they used to have. I have lived a great while, and I have helped in butchering hogs and tried to cure it. I can remember several years where the meat spoiled and it was a total loss. If you have got a method now that is safe so the meat will not be lost, you ought to give it to those who raise their own meat. Mr. SHEETS. We have a simple inexpensive plan for cooling meat that uses either ice or mechanical refrigeration, which quickly brings the temperature down to about 34 to 36 degrees. That is as near an insurance against spoliage of that meat as can be cheaply provided. Mr. BUCHANAN. There are farmers who are killing their hogs, taking their meat into town, putting it into an ice plant and curing it at 1 or 2 cents a pound right now. If that meat could be cured on the farm, a great saving would be made. Mr. SHEETS. In some States last year the average, I expect, was between 2 and 2%1⁄2 cents a pound. With increased volume many of these plants can afford to and have decreased the charge, due frequently to the organized efforts of the county agents. In spite of the meat stored in cold storage, much was lost on the farm due to a very warm, open winter. Organized effort is being made by Mr. Warner, who handles the meat extension work in our division, and the extension leaders in the States to prevent the recurrence of that loss this year. Every avenue has been seized from Texas to North Carolina to acquaint the State leaders and farmers with the basic requirements producing sound, palatable meat. Mr. Warner and the State leaders have held practice demonstrations in many of these Southern States where county agents were given an opportunity to actually cut and cure the meat according to the most successful practice. It has been a feature of this plan to train these local extension workers and to utilize the ice-plant managers so as to prevent the spoilage of thousands of pounds of meat cured by the farmers in their strenuous efforts to provide the family with farm-grown food. I agree with you that it is not the function of the Federal Government to keep that service up indefinitely. Our program has been to work through the State colleges and to train the local leaders so that they can do the job next year themselves without our help. Mr. BUCHANAN. And in the course of a few years the people will learn it and the thing will be over with. We have got to bring that home to all individual farmers, these economies, especially until this depression is over. METHOD OF PREPARING AND PRESENTING ESTIMATES OF AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT Mr. HART. Mr. Jump, I missed one day here. Most of these requests for appropriations for 1934 run along about the same as what was appropriated in 1933, less 8% per cent? Mr. JUMP. Most of them, but there is about $1,000,000 dollars of reductions over and above the amounts taken off on account of the furlough reduction. In the earlier part of the hearings you will find a complete analysis of the increases and decreases. Mr. BUCHANAN. That reduction is carried into these estimates? Mr. JUMP. There is about a million dollars' worth of miscellaneous reductions over and above the salary. Mr. HART. Is that what you call a nonrecurring item? Mr. JUMP. No. There are only than $30,000, as I recall them. a few nonrecurring items, less Mr. HART. Let me ask you one more question: This breakdown here in the bill and the whole set-up is prepared by your department, or the Department of Agriculture? Mr. JUMP. No; this mimeograph book of explanatory notes is prepared by the department, but the page proof on which your committee print is based, is really an advance page proof of the Budget as it will come from the President in his formal budget message to Congress. Mr. HART. You furnish all figures? Mr. JUMP. Oh, yes. Mr. HART. Those were not taken by the Bureau of the Budget? Mr. JUMP. Yes; the Bureau of the Budget holds hearings and makes up the Budget. The Budget is really a document that comes from the Budget Bureau. Of course, the figures primarily come from the books and the estimates of the department. Mr. HART. They hold hearings within your department? 149139-32 -14 Mr. JUMP. No; they hold them at the Budget Bureau, just like the hearings we have here. We make up our estimates, consisting of the language the same as you have it here, showing the appropriation for this year, what we spent last year, and what we believe we ought to have next year, and we submit a supporting schedule of expenditures, project statements, and so forth for three years. We submit that to the Director of the Budget. Then the Budget Bureau holds detailed hearings on all items. The Budget Bureau hearings this year lasted almost a month. The Budget Bureau goes into every item a little more in detail than you go into them here; more perhaps into the mechanics and details of the expenditures than you do here, perhaps not so much into the technical phases of some of the work as here. By and large, however, we go through a very thorough hearing at the Budget Bureau and it is getting more thorough as the Budget staff becomes more familiar with the intricacies of the department's work. Then we get word from the Budget Bureau as to what will be submitted in the Budget, and the schedules of expenditures, project allotments, and so forth, have to be revised by the department to meet those amounts. Then we prepare this mimeograph book in the department in explanation of changes in the Budget, for the information of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. HART. I wanted to get a picture of the work. Mr. BUCHANAN. That book was prepared at the request of, and for, the use of the committee. EXPERIMENTS AND DEMONSTRATION IN LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION Mr. BUCHANAN. The next item reads as follows: To enable the Secretary of Agriculture, in cooperation with the authorities of the States concerned, or with individuals, to make such investigations and demonstrations as may be necessary in connection with the development of livestock production in the cane-sugar and cotton districts of the United States, $39,560. Mr. SHEETS. The following is submitted: Appropriation, 1932___. Appropriation, 1933 Budget estimate, 1934 Decrease $1,765 reduction on account of continuation of legislative furlough. WORK UNDER THIS APPROPRIATION This is a regional station located by Jeanerette, near New Iberia, La., to determine the proper feeding, breeding, and handling of dairy and beef cattle and pigs in the Gulf coast country. The by-products of cotton, rice, and sugar are tried out as animal feeds with a view of encouraging diversified farming by the raising of more livestock. Investigations are made also in the establishment, improvement, and utilization of pastures. The Bureaus of Animal Industry, Dairy Industry, and Plant Industry are cooperating in this work. Experiments with horses have the object of determining the comparative usefulness of mules and horses for the farm work of the region. ACTIVITIES OF JEANERETTE, LA., LIVESTOCK STATION The major projects here are beef and dual-purpose cattle investigations, swine investigations, meat investigations, horse and mule investigations, and pasture and forage crops. The results of the work are applicable to the Gulf coast area, covering rice, sugar and part of cotton-producing States and is carried on in |
