A neighbor, Blackwell Pierce, according to PMA records, was cut from 550 to 115 acres and finally adjusted to 292 acres. It is unfair when cotton allotments are distributed in such a way that the farms which planted the cotton which gives a State its base acreage are deprived of a fair share of it. This is not just a matter of dollars and cents with us. We have 63 families living on our farm, both white and colored. The average tenure of these families I have stated here is well over 20 years, but when I got home and discussed it with Dad, I found that 37 of the heads of these families were born on these farms. Only 2 heads of the families are foreign-that is, have come from further than 20 miles from this home. Some of these families are descended from slaves who lived on the place before the Civil War. This is the only home and the only way of life these people know or want, and yet, without cotton the farm could not possibly support more than half that many families. We offer these farmers a choice of tenancy or wages, but the wage workers average a longer tenure on the farm than the tenants. We hire no transient labor. Every family is furnished a house, firewood, and all the garden they can tend. The tenant's share is adjusted according to the amount of equipment he owns. Our tenants produce cotton at an out-of-pocket cost as low as anyone in the belt. The whole expense charged to them is the fertilizer, all the insectide but not the cost of application, and the ginning charge. This amounts to less than $45 per acre. Last year we did not have a man to produce less than a bale of cotton to the acre. The size of the crop varies from 7 to 20 acres per family, according to the amount they can handle and house. We installed a $100,000 gin last year. This enables us to produce Middling cotton from hand-stripped cotton and permits the farmers to handle and house large cotton acreages. A number of such gins have been installed in our area. We pay medical expenses of these tenants and often have to carry them for several years. If we are sharply reduced in cotton acreage for an extended period we would simply have to reduce the number of families on the farm, and turn to other field crops, which could be handled with less labor, primarily small grains, soybeans, corn, and alfalfa. We have carried many of these families through the depression and personal hard luck, and it would be a serious blow to them and to the community, if we should be forced by an unfair allotment system to send them away from the only place they know as home. For these reasons, I believe that the Congress should establish not less than a 2212-million-acre minimum national cotton allotment. I believe that the present 5-year base for figuring allotments at the State and county level should not be changed, but that the law should be amended to permit allotments within the counties on a historical basis as is done for every other crop under allotment. Thank you. Mr. GATHINGS. I want to thank you for a very fine statement. You brought out two very fine points and neither of them have been touched on before. I would like to commend you first for giving us specific information on your own farm, and what the 1950 allotment law did to you, and what this Congress did in order to rectify the situation that did exist on your farm, and your neighbors also, as I believe you brought out, who was cut from 550 to 115 acres but who was finally adjusted to 292 as a result of the special act passed here. Mr. EVERETT. That is right. Mr. GATHINGS. You folks in North Carolina assisted us greatly by coming here to testify. We are most grateful to you. Another point is that cotton was grown also by the sharecrop tenant-landlord relationship and that these shapecroppers have been on this land for years and years. That is the situation in the State of Arkansas. These old darkies have been there for many years and they have a place to live given them and they farm a few acres in accordance with the number of children that they have and the number in their family working. I am very proud that you brought those two points out. Mr. ABERNETHY. These bills will do the very same thing that Cooley's bill did in 1950 when it was necessary to come here and pass a special bill. Mr. ALBERT. In North Carolina you have one of the smallest average cotton acreage farms in the country. I think it is around 4 or 5 acres, it is not, the average? Mr. EVERETT. Florida is the only one I think that has less than we have. Mr. ALBERT. Of course you are in the cotton business much more extensively than Florida. Obviously without some kind of a provision such as the Abernethy bill, the fact that your State must furnish all these minimum acreage allotments is bound to take away a lot of acreage from people of your kind, there is no way out of it, whereas a State where everybody is above the minimum-that factor does not enter in and they cannot appreciate the difficulty that you have. You are not taking it away from the other fellow, but you are giving yourself, as a cotton farmer, something comparable to what people get across the belt generally of the same class and category as you; is that right? Mr. EVERETT. That is exactly our attitude, sir. Mr. ALBERT. I think it is fair. Mr. ABERNETHY. I think you have entirely overlooked the thing that prompted these hearings. As I understand you, you have got enough trouble as it is. Mr. EVERETT. Yes, sir. Mr. ABERNETHY. But you know these fellows sitting back here now, they are wanting to make it worse; you understand that, do you not? Mr. EVERETT. Yes. That is why I am here. Mr. ABERNETHY. No. You are here because of some kinks that are in the law now, that is why you are here now. The thing that prompted these hearings was these fellows over here who want to take some more of the acreage that you are already having trouble making it go around. Your hardship, if they succeed, is to be doubled; you understand that, do you not? Mr. EVERETT. Yes, sir. Mr. ABERNETHY. And you already have enough trouble, do you not? Mr. GATHINGS. At the same time, Mr. Abernethy, they, if you will yield Mr. ABERNETHY. You already have enough trouble, do you not? If they pass another gadget bill and take away a little more of your acreage, you will be in bad shape, won't you? Mr. ALBERT. You realize that every acre taken away from North Carolina is going to be taken away from you, because they cannot take it away from this little average fellow. He is allowed that under the present law. Mr. ABERNETHY. These boys sitting around in California and Arizona will probably want to amortize their taxes, but you can box up your tenants and send them out there. That will probably solve your problem. Mr. GATHINGS. I want to commend you, and I am still commending him for coming in here and bringing some real evidence here in support of your bill. Mr. MOINTIRE. We certainly appreciate your coming up here from North Carolina, Mr. Everett, to offer to us the benefit of your thoughts. STATEMENT OF MYRES TILGHMAN, PRESIDENT OF THE CAROLINAS GINNERS ASSOCIATION, DUNN, N. C. Mr. MCINTIRE. Mr. Tilghman, we will be glad to have you present your testimony. Mr. TILGHMAN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, my name is Myres Tilghman; my home is in Dunn, N. C. I am a cotton farmer, a custom-cotton ginner, a custom-cotton storage warehouseman, president of the Carolinas Ginners Association and a member of the North Carolina Cotton Promotion Committee. There are 485 cotton gins in North Carolina, representing an investment of approximately $16,975,000, and 490 cotton gins in South Carolina, representing an investment of approximately $17,150,000. In the fall of 1951, I lost my main cotton gin by fire. I applied for rapid tax amortization to replace it with a new plant. I normally gin in excess of 5,000 bales of cotton a year with this main gin plant; however, I was advised no quick tax writeoff would be granted me. Regardless of my failure to receive this tax aid, I rebuilt my gin at an approximate cost of $100,000, feeling certain that North Carolina cotton was here to stay. The most decisive factor in my decision was to serve my 500 gin customers, who were so dependent on cotton for their economy. I also knew that I could depreciate my investment over a normal period of years. After I was operating my new gin, in the latter part of the busy season of 1952, I was advised no quick tax writeoff had been, or would be granted, for cotton gins or cotton storage warehouses east of the Mississippi River. Mr. ABERNETHY. Will the gentleman yield while I ask a question? Do I understand that you tried to get a tax amortization certificate? Mr. TILGHMAN. That is right. Mr. ABERNETHY. Evidently you did not know whom to see, did you? Mr. TILGHMAN. I must not have. I did not get it, anyhow. Mr. ABERNETHY. You are just from the wrong section, I guess. Mr. TILGHMAN. I was also informed that these certificates were granted west of the Mississippi River, on the basis that, in a limited time, western cotton acreage would be reduced substantially and that this investment would be worthless. Since the cessation of hostilities in Europe the rate of cotton-gin improvement in North Carolina has been made at the rate of about $1 million per year and about $1,500,000 per year in South Carolina. So, that at the present time no North or South Carolina cotton producer is more than 40 or 50 miles from an adequate, first class, modern cotton gin. During this period of improvement in our cotton gins, the percentage of rough preparation cotton-cotton reduced in grade due to improper or inadequate ginning has been reduced from 16.32 percent in North Carolina and 14.8 percent in South Carolina to 1.03 percent in North Carolina and to 1 percent in South Carolina through the 1952 season, which goes to prove that the cotton industry in the 2 States has made substantial strides toward rendering a better service to its producer customers, and is planning for a future in which cotton production will not be too drastically reduced by Government controls. Over 50 percent of the Nation's spindles are in the two Carolinas. North Carolina alone spins more than 2 million bales a year. What can be more logical than to produce cotton where it is used? In North Carolina the planting of cotton has been reduced and worked into a balanced farm program. We believe in crop rotation for the conservation and improvement of our soils. We believe in a balanced farm operation, which we have learned, through many years of experience, cannot be done with a one-crop operation. Two hundred and eighty-eight thousand farm families with an average of 28 cleared acres of land per family are dependent on our soil for their very existence. We want the good earth to remain productive and to sustain them. We have learned that crop rotation and soil conservation is the only long-term outlook for our farming future. Therefore, we have tried to follow these practices. To deprive North Carolina of its already reduced normal cotton acreage, to the extent proposed by our wealthy western neighbors, in their plan to reduce the base cotton acreage period from 5 years to 3 years and shift cotton acreage to the Far West, would work a severe hardship on all cotton farmers in our two States, and hamper our very existence. In 1937 we planted in excess of 1,500,000 acres in cotton, and have reduced our acreage in cotton to slightly in excess of three-fourths of a million acres. And, we have fitted our cotton production into a wellbalanced and diversified farm program. For their own good, our western neighbors should do the same. I feel, along with other farm people in my area, that cotton acreage should be allocated nationally on a historical basis. We are glad to see that our western neighbors have abandoned their asking for a 3-year historical basis, to which we were so strongly opposed. I am sure they too have seen the unfairness which this would have caused. We are opposed to the Farm Bureau plan, which would give new cotton growers more acreage than they are entitled to under the present law. We want the law to remain as it now stands, with some technical amendments to permit counties to allot cotton to farms on a historical basis, where it suits their local situation. If this is not done, it will cause severe hardships in many North Carolina counties. We are opposed to any national reserve, as we feel the law can be corrected without resorting to this measure. Mr. GATHINGS. Are you close to Nash County? Mr. TILGHMAN. About 60 miles from Nash County. Mr. GATHINGS. This committee visited Nashville, N. C., a few years ago, and it was my pleasure to view a magnificent parade in Nash County and I agree with the gentleman wholeheartedly that Nash County has gone in for diversification. Mr. TILGHMAN. You will find that most counties in North Carolina are pretty well diversified in their operation. Mr. MCMILLAN. You do not have any large farms in North Carolina, do you? Mr. TILGHMAN. No, sir; no large ones. I think the average family has seven acres. Mr. McINTIRE. We certainly appreciate your coming here from your home to give us the benefit of your views. Is Mr. Upchurch here now? A VOICE. No, sir, he has not gotten here yet. STATEMENT OF E. H. AGNEW, PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION Mr. McINTIRE. Mr. Agnew, will you take the stand? Mr. MCMILLAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce Mr. Agnew. He is president of our Farm Bureau in South Carolina, of about 80 farmers and 80 citizens. He has taken an interest in all types of farms. Mr. McINTIRE. We are glad to have you here, Mr. Agnew. Mr. AGNEW. That is right. I came in after 2 o'clock. My name is E. H. Agnew. I am president of the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation with a membership of 20,487, and affiliated with the American Farm Bureau Federation. We help to formulate the policies of the American Farm Bureau Federation and usually subscribe to them and cooperate in supporting them. Mr. ALBERT. Is it the policy of the American Farm Bureau Federation to adopt policies that are inimical to so many of the people of their own State memberships, that are so directly affected as in this case? Is that a part of the policy of the American Farm Bureau Federation? Mr. AGNEW. Mr. Albert, the policy of the American Farm Bureau Federation is a democratic process. The majority of the voting delegates in the annual convention established the policy by adopting resolutions by a majority vote or rejecting them. Mr. GATHINGS. Did the vote come from the grassroots? Mr. ALBERT. Was the American Farm Bureau policy adopted at your annual convention or only by vote? Mr. AGNEW. At the annual convention. The policies are established by the voting delegates at the annual convention. Mr. ALBERT. I am talking about this bill here. Mr. AGNEW. The policy with respect to this bill was adopted by the board on June 29 or 30. Mr. GATHINGS. Did it come from the grassroots? Mr. AGNEW. It did not come from South Carolina. |