is, I intend to farm it more intensively in a few years, but at present it is covered and the rest is in trees. Nobody has mentioned trees but a lot of our South Carolina farms have gone back into trees. The CHAIRMAN. We heard a lot of testimony on that in Georgia yesterday. Mr. THOMASON. Yes, sir. Step 2: All buyers and processors of specified farm produce in the essential categories selected for support must possess a Government license, such license subject to constant supervision, inspection, and suspension and revocation upon conviction of misuse. Step 3: Previous to a specified annual deadline date, possessors of each and every farm franchise must file upon a standard business machine punchcard full information for his exact planned acreage in each and every category, and this planned acreage must be further processed by the local administration to fill in estimated production in each and every category for the coming farm year in advance as it is estimated by local familiar administrator, such as county agent or assistants. Step 4: These individual production estimates for each individual farm, as placed upon proposed standard business machine punchcards, must be forwarded to a State administrative center in each individual State and a State summary compiled in each category subject to support. This summary shall provide estimated acreage and estimated production as planned by each individual farm and consolidated by each State. Step 5: These individual State summaries of individual planned acreage and production must then be forwarded to national agricultural headquarters previous to a set deadline date and there further consolidated into a national consolidated report for each and all individual categories. Step 6: From this consolidated national report of individually planned acreage and production, a complete and full study must be immediately initiated and quickly completed by a very competent authority so designated and fully qualified to do so, and from this study, full recommendations must be made immediately available for action. Step 7: These recommendations will be embodied in a production proposal report and such report shall recommend in each and every category such reduction or addition in production as is deemed fit and proper and wise for both the individual farmer and the national economy as a whole and entirely. Such reduction or addition proposed for each and every category shall take the form and be expressed in a percentage of the whole. Step 8: In order to secure the proper results from the production recommendation report, the following action is suggested and proposed to secure : (a) Proper percentage deduction or addition in proposed production for the coming year. (b) Proper price support for the farmer and control for the consuming public and general welfare. (c) It is proposed to accomplish this by product control rather than acreage. I may be stepping on dangerous ground with (d). It might be necessary to have acres, too. The CHAIRMAN. You may already have been on dangerous ground. Do you know how long it would take to send reports to Washington? Mr. THOMASON. Not long, they are on business machine cards, IBM cards. Run them through a machine. The CHAIRMAN. You want to put the acreage on that of everything he would plant and the size of the farm he has and all of that? Mr. THOMASON. I have that on my farm now. The CHAIRMAN. You are an engineer. Mr. THOMASON. I am a farmer there. I went up to the farmThe CHAIRMAN. Used your engineering skill to make that plan, did you? Mr. THOMASON. No, sir. The Farm Conservation did the whole thing. I didn't have a thing to do with it. It has a map of my whole place, acreage divided up. I didn't have one thing to do with it. I am allotted so much. Five acres of cotton. I didn't have a thing to do with it. The CHAIRMAN. Who would choose where to plant it? Mr. THOMASON. I haven't planted it yet, but you can plant it anywhere you want to. The CHAIRMAN. All right, go ahead. Mr. THOMASON. You can plant it anywhere you want to. Step 9: From the individual farmers original planned production card, a standard return card is prepared and returned or the original is processed to accomplish the same result. The desired result is to cut or add to his original planned production as a whole and entirety exactly for the individual percentage recommended by the national report in each item and category that applies to each individual farm card. It is production I am after. It was covered by witnesses this morning. If they switch from peaches and corn the national average would cut him down some, but not all. He could maybe increase some other stuff. The CHAIRMAN. That would be in advance of planting? Mr. THOMASON. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. What if you had good weather to give better crops than you anticipated? Mr. THOMASON. That is covered. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. Mr. THOMASON. Step 10: It is proposed to accomplish this end in a voluntary manner by allowing each individual farmer an individual quota for his individual farm production as a whole. This covers it, a quota. The CHAIRMAN. What would you do with the excess if he produced over that quota? Mr. THOMASON. We will get to that, too. Step 11: This individual anual approved quota is arrived at by taking the exact amount of the production estimated by the adminis tration upon his original card and either reducing or adding the exact percentage to each individual item that is specified in the national production report prepared from the sum of all estimate cards for the entire Nation. Step 12: Together with his individual quota, each farmer is issued noncounterfeit and nonforgeable standard production certificates in the exact amount of his production quota for each individual year. The CHAIRMAN. For each crop? Mr. THOMASON. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. If he plants 10 or 15 crops Mr. THOMASON. Just the ones that carry supports. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. Mr. THOMASON. It is stressed that these quotas will vary for each item and vary each year according to conditions and that they will be finally arrived at each year by the above-suggested means. Step 13: The value of these production certificates will also vary from year to year and from item to item in each of the farm-support categories and the reason for such variation is that they are intended to be a flexible means of support to achieve a parity with all other nonfarm production and personal services. That parity will be on the same plane. The CHAIRMAN. You mean of income? Mr. THOMASON. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Parity of income. Mr. THOMASON. Yes, sir: put it on the same. In other words, when you jump the rate from 75 cents to a dollar, you jump up parity. The CHAIRMAN. It is parity of income. Mr. THOMASON. That is more or less correct. When I say parity, I am not going by the exact parity we have had, but one that can be worked out by any means that is best for the farmer and the Nation as a whole. No. 14: Such value is proposed as the difference that exists at any time between parity and existing price. No. 15: This production-certificate value is proposed to be procured by means of a sales or processing stamp to be bought from any bank, post office, national farm adjustment or State administration source, or other approved and designated sources. Step 16: These stamps are proposed to be double stamps, numbered for identification and protection and tracing, with further color identification, and are to be used as follows: Step 17: Half of the double stamp is to be affixed to the production certificate of the farmer-seller in unit amount equal to the value designated upon the production certificate and the other half of the double stamp is to be retained by the buyer-processor for his records and periodic inspection. Step 18: It is noted that affixation of these stamps are presumed to bridge the gap between parity prices and actual prices at any dated time, and that means must be provided for varying the unit valuation. of stamps necessary to bridge this gap, and it is further presumed that if prices are equal or above parity, then no unit valuation of stamps may be necessary, although the stamps may be required to provide continuity of process. Step 19: At any rate, the gap between parity and actual prices are proposed to be bridged by the collection of sales and/or processing tax stamps-that should be excise stamps, like tobacco or whisky stamps-to provide the necessary source of income paid into the National Treasury from which the proposed farm production-quota. certificate may be redeemed in cash to the farmer by arrangement with local banks or farm administration. No. 20: The farmer will, of course, not have these certificates unless he accepts his quota and abides by the requirements enough to retain his farm franchise. Step 21: It is further suggested for additional study that selective and optional surplus be bought up by the Government at much reduced prices-say, one-half-in time of surplus and resold to the farmers in times of crop failure or disaster at reduced prices to form both an emergency storage and a form of farm-crop insurance. The CHAIRMAN. Your plan is intended only for basics. Mr. THOMASON. That is as far as I can get right now. I just got this hurriedly up because I saw in the papers you all wanted some new ideas. The CHAIRMAN. Most of what you have there has been stated to us in a different way. Mr. THOMASON. Probably so. tion to try to give a suggestion. the wastebasket. This is a consolidation and integra- The CHAIRMAN. You have some points. It is administration that bothers us in a plan like this. Mr. THOMASON. Probably nothing new in this thing that hasn't been done. For instance, in tobacco, you collect tax stamps and give it back to the farmer instead of using it for the general income. That is an example. The same thing on peaches. He doesn't get the full amount, but gets the difference between what he is selling and what they are supposed to sell for. He can get that much, anyway. Senator JOHNSTON. I believe I have heard something about like that in the Brannan plan. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; that is the so-called Brannan plan. Mr. THOMASON. The Brannan plan, I may be wrong, that was, the income was taken from the National Treasury. The CHAIRMAN. Yours does that. Mr. THOMASON. It is from- The CHAIRMAN. Somebody will pay that difference; who is? is only on farm products, not paid out of the just added to the farm products. The CHAIRMAN. Where will the money come from to pay that difference? Mr. THOMASON. Comes from these stamps. The CHAIRMAN. Who buys the stamps? Mr. THOMASON. The processor buys the stamps just like the tobacco processor buys tobacco stamps. Senator JOHNSTON. The consumer pays that? Mr. THOMASON. That is correct, consumer pays the difference between 75 cents and a dollar rate. Every time you raise wages the consumer pays that. Senator JOHNSTON. That goes back to the same thing as the Brannan plan. Mr. THOMASON. I don't think it is exactly the same. The CHAIRMAN. In the so-called Brannan plan the farmer would sell for what the market will bring and he will receive from the Treasury the difference between what the market brings and what the parity is. Mr. THOMASON. In this instance the Treasury collects it at the time of production on each individual item. The CHAIRMAN. I understand, but you simply get another way to collect taxes. That is what you are doing. The consumer pays that. Mr. THOMASON. This goes right back to the farmer, but not into the General Treasury. The CHAIRMAN. It is collected from the consumer. think your collect your taxes now? From the people. Where do you Mr. THOMASON. It is collected only on the product. The difference is this is collected on the product made. Each thing stands on its own That is the difference. Each individual item stands on its own feet. feet. The CHAIRMAN. All right. Mr. THOMASON. It is further suggested that without delay a study be initiated at once for the formation in the immediate future for an international commodity exchange in which every conceivable finished and raw material, farm and dairy products, and every form of manufactured article may be exchanged and counterexchanged upon a barter basis with all other countries, individuals, companies, and corporations, enemy nations excepted, and national security permitting. Step 23: It is further suggested that by such barter exchange our stockpiles of every conceivable nature be built up, including all raw concentrated ores and oils to any extent and that surplus farm products be offered in exchange to facilitate such stockpiling. Other forms of farm adjustment and aid may be used and meshed with the above-proposed processes, including acreage rental, soil conservation, et cetera. The CHAIRMAN. We will give it closer study. Mr. Plowden, please. Give your name for the record. STATEMENT OF CHARLES N. PLOWDEN, SUMMERTON, S. C. Mr. PLOWDEN. Charles N. Plowden, banker and farmer. Senator, I will be as brief as possible, and highlight it. I am from a small rural county, lower South Carolina, Clarendon County, now famous. We have a small group of farmers there, a very small group, only a few large ones in the county. Our trouble has been caused by first a 90-percent of parity whereas I believe that if we were to maintain an average standard of living commensurate with other groups it should have been 100 percent. However, that 90 percent in the early days when the South and Southwest had a great deal of the cotton acreage was much easier to get along with than 90 percent now on the small amount of acreage that we have since a great part of the cotton quota has shifted to California, Arizona, in New Mexico, and the Western States. We could gradually reach a place where we would have 90 percent of nothing and it would be nothing. That is one phase that has come about. The next in our section has been because of the weather. The Government could not cause that. While many people sold cotton this year at 37 cents, we get 291⁄2 to 30 cents, good cotton. Cottonseed was |