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any foreign country should be adopted. We should aim toward eventual elimination of all support programs but should do it gradually by first using the flexible price program.

As an example of why I oppose support programs, the range-cattle business has always operated without supports, and today is in the best position of any segment of Arizona agriculture.

I have a brother, 3 nephews, and 4 good friends who have always been interested and busy in the cattle industry in Arizona. So I know what I am talking about.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir.

Next is Mr. Cottingham.

Give us your name in full.

STATEMENT OF GREER COTTINGHAM, QUAY COUNTY, N. MEX.

Mr. COTTINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, my name is Greer Cottingham from Quay County. That is over on the east side of New Mexico. I am directly milking cows, in other words, we are in the dairy business.

I appreciate the fact that Senator Ellender has mentioned the dairy business 5 or 6 times today. It must be kind of on his mind. We are at the present time not hurting particularly. We are pretty well satisfied with the setup at the present time.

Of course, cheap feeds are helping us to produce our milk. I believe we are supposed to be at the present time at about 8212 percent of parity.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you selling grade A milk?

Mr. COTTINGHAM. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You have a marketing agreement?

Mr. COTTINGHAM. No. There is no working milk marketing order in the State of New Mexico.

The CHAIRMAN. There is not an overproduction in New Mexico? Mr. COTTINGHAM. We hope not. That moves around from area to area, just like everything else does.

Senator ANDERSON. Do you sell in the Tucumcari market?

Mr. COTTINGHAM. We sell in that area. We do not have any working Federal orders in the State of New Mexico. We do have a tristate dairy association which has just come up in the Panhandle of Texas. I am very well acquainted with that.

We are very proud that we are up eight-tenths percent consumption on milk. We have moved from 8 to 9 percent more of cheese and milk products this past year.

Even though we are up in production with our increased amount of consumption, I believe we have moved nearly one-half, according to the records, of our surplus, which we are more than proud of. The CHAIRMAN. You mean here in New Mexico?

Mr. COTTINGHAM. I mean as a whole. Unless my magazines are wrong, we have moved approximately one-half of our surplus. I do not say that we did not give that away, et cetera.

The CHAIRMAN. We did not move it. We gave it away. Your magazine article is wrong.

Mr. COTTINGHAM. We are interested in getting shut of them.
The CHAIRMAN. We sold milk products as feed for hogs.

Mr. COTTINGHAM. That is right. We will not have to use so much grain stuff.

The CHAIRMAN. It cost the Government plenty of money.

Mr. COTTINGHAM. We are just as interested in getting as much out of the grain as these people. They need it for a livelihood.

We do hope at the same time that we hold a minimum price with them, so that we can feed our cattle and produce our milk along the same lines as we are at the present time. The best way I can figure it is that we are working on less than a 6 percent margin of profit. The CHAIRMAN. Gross sales?

Mr. COTTINGHAM. Yes, sir. Wait a minute. That is on gross sales of raw milk. The processor-you do not have to say it off the recordhe is still working on a 25 to 26 percent margin. I would probably be doing the same thing if I were in his shoes. And I just say more power to him.

We are getting along pretty good at the present time. We do hope something will be worked out with these people on these grain sorghums especially in our part of the State. We hope that they can work that up to a point that they can receive a livelihood, because in many instances that is the only way they have of making a living. So far as a solution to the program is concerned, I could not say it might be a feasible solution, but I do know this, as long as we have as many pounds or bushels or hundredweight of this grain in storage, any type of program is not going to work too efficiently until that stockpile is depleted.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I agree with you.

Senator ANDERSON. You are interested then in trying to see these grain sorghum people get some help in your part of the State? Mr. COTTINGHAM. Naturally, they cannot buy my products. Senator ANDERSON. I am anxious to hear that. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Heimann.

STATEMENT OF FRED HEIMANN, UNION COUNTY, N. MEX.

Mr. HEIMANN. Mr. Chairman and Senator Anderson, my name is Fred Heimann. I am from Union County, N. Mex. That is in the northeastern part of this State. I am certainly glad to have this opportunity. I appreciate your coming down here, Senators. It makes me feel like I am a little closer to Washington than ever before. My business is producing cattle, feeders, and so on. I have been at it since 1908.

The CHAIRMAN. How many acres have you?
Mr. HEIMANN. About 40,000 acres.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you own that?

Mr. HEIMANN. I own about 32,000 and the rest of it I lease.

The CHAIRMAN. How many cattle can you grow on that?

Mr. HEIMANN. About 800.

The CHAIRMAN. Eight hundred?

Mr. HEIMAN. Eight hundred head of breeding cows.

And then I

keep my yearlings. I keep my cows until they are yearlings and sell them as feeders.

The CHAIRMAN. Does it take as many as 40 acres to sustain a cow?

Mr. HEIMANN. It has taken a lot more than that this last year, with a lot of supplementary feed. Now our trouble is that this summer we did not have only dry weather, but grasshoppers, and we had to spray for them. Now we have gotten a little rain. The grass is a little green. And it is starting to freeze.

The CHAIRMAN. A cow must get very tired going over 40 acres. Senator ANDERSON. Mr. Heimann, let us be sure that we get the chairman straightened out on this. Forty acres to a breeding cow

is not unusual at all, is it?

Mr. HEIMANN. That is right. That is not.

Senator ANDERSON. Mr. McDade is up in that part of the country and various others. The Lord has not been too good with us on rainfall. And so please look at us kindly.

Mr. HEIMANN. I will tell you how I would do this. It might sound sort of queer. I use about 800 head of cows. Then I keep my cows until they are yearlings; these cows, whenever a dry spell hits us, you can hardly move them in the spring of the year with a bunch of calves. So I keep the calves over until the next year. In case it gets too dry, you can move them out of the country and do something else with them. You have to leave the cows at home.

I do not know as I have anything special to offer, but I appreciate being here. I have learned more about cotton and beans and dairy business today than I ever have in all of my life put together.

The CHAIRMAN. I suppose you realized we have little problems in Washington.

Mr. HEIMANN. I kind of begin to realize what you might be up against. I surely appreciate and thank you for coming down here. I believe you got some firsthand information.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. HEIMANN. A Senator of your caliber is kind of like the cows of my caliber. You cover a lot of country. My cows cover a lot of country.

Senator ANDERSON. Where is it in Union County?

Mr. HEIMANN. I have a little patch right close to Mitchell, right east of there, right next to the State line. I think it is fine country. I would not be there if I did not.

I do not have anything to say that is new on these price supports. We have a lot of good. This range program-I do not know all of these scientific names, but in making these ponds and deferring pastures and drilling wells and building fence has certainly been a lot of help to the ranchers in our part of the country.

The CHAIRMAN. I am for that. We will continue it.

Mr. HEIMANN. It has educated us. I do not believe that these flexible price supports are any good to us. I understand that the House has passed a bill, H. R. 12, I think they call it. And it is up to the Senate to act on. I hope that you Senators will see fit to go right along with that.

The CHAIRMAN. That is why we are holding these hearings. We will use that bill as the measure to tack on to it any formula that we may agree to, it is my hope, out of all these hearings over the country, that we will be able to get enough evidence, enough views, enough ideas in order to draft a bill that will be acceptable to the Senate. If we can do that, fine.

Mr. HEIMANN. Personally I am more worried about shortages than I am about surpluses. I have been living in New Mexico too long. Our trouble has always been shortages, especially when we first homesteaded here.

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STATEMENT OF CHARLES JOHNSON, ALBUQUERQUE, N. MEX.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman and Senator Anderson, I feel like a small part of this agriculture, after listening to Mr. Heimann. I am Charles Johnson and come from 56 miles southeast of Albuquerque. I have farmed 200 acres with 100 acres of alfalfa and 100 acres of beans. That is a very poor combination.

I only run sheep and cattle on lease. I do not own the cattle or the sheep.

Senator ANDERSON. Are you pumping?

Mr. JOHNSON. I am pumping.

Senator ANDERSON. And how much lift?

Mr. JOHNSON. I have 120-foot lift.

The CHAIRMAN. How long have you had your pump?

Mr. JOHNSON. The well was drilled in 1948.

The CHAIRMAN. How much has that lift increased since you first started?

Mr. JOHNSON. Only 10 feet in that length of time. That is not too much. We have a peculiar situation there in developing this new valley. It so happens that beans was the cash crop for many years before the irrigation was developed. Since the irrigation was developed beans continue to be the cash crop in that valley.

The other main source of income off of the farms has been dairy cattle. That is not with all of the farmers. They cannot all be dairymen. Not all of them can feed sheep or cattle.

We have not been able to convert to this livestock economy as yet. So we still have been depending on beans as our only cash crop.

We do have two other cash crops which are coming in. One is sugar beets, and the other is potatoes, in both of which we have a surplusboth of which are very difficult to expand.

Therefore, we are put in a difficult position because of this cut in bean prices for the last 3 years. We are down to the point now where we are even losing money if we plant them. In other words, we have lost our cash crop.

What are we going to do? We do not know yet.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. I have one other thing that I would like to say here. The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir.

Mr. JOHNSON. On the national recommendations, one thing that I have learned here today, and from other reading, is that the problem of surplus is caused by overplanting and this is done by people who do not comply with the law of acreage control. The penalty is not severe enough to prevent people from planting too much corn and then paying the penalty, or planting too much cotton and then paying the penalty, and then putting these crops on the market, either as hogs or as extra cotton.

The penalty should be raised to such a point that these people will not overplant. That is the real problem. That is, as far as our national agriculture is concerned.

Another thing, our Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Benson, has been putting things on the market in competition with crops when that should not be done. I do not know just how this is being done. The CHAIRMAN. What crops?

Senator ANDERSON. What do you refer to?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, like cheese, for example. Instead of taking this cheese off the market and keeping it in the Commodity Credit Corporation, why in that particular example he dumped it right back where it could be put into competition with us.

The CHAIRMAN. The cheese, as I understand it, that he disposed of was on the school-lunch program. You do not object to that; do you?

it.

Mr. JOHNSON. No, if it is put into the school-lunch program.

The CHAIRMAN. That is where most of it has gone, as I understand

Senator ANDERSON. I imagine that you are referring to that resale of cheese which was sold right back to the cheese people.

The CHAIRMAN. I recall that.

Mr. JOHNSON. In beans, for example, I do not know whether any of them have been put back into competition with us or not. seems, however, too many crops are going into the Commodity Credit Corporation, and yet they are getting back into the hands of the people that want them. It is not performing the job that the Commodity Credit Corporation is supposed to perform, to keep them off the market in competition with the farmer.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

So far as the list that I have before me is concerned, I have called every witness who asked to be heard.

I want to thank all of you for your patience, and for being present. I am sure that I speak for Senator Anderson when I say that we are both glad to have had the occasion to listen to all of you. Let us hope that from these hearings, and those we will have in the future, and those we have had in the past, we will be able to get something to better the farmer, at any rate.

I want to thank you again.

(Whereupon, at 3:40 p. m. the hearing was adjourned, to reconvene at 9 a. m. Saturday, November 5, 1955, in Fort Worth, Tex.) (Additional statements filed for the record are as follows:)

STATEMENT FILED BY SHERWOOD CULBERSON, PRESIDENT, NEW MEXICO CATTLE GROWERS' ASSOCIATION, LORDSBURG, N. MEX.

The historic position of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association has been in opposition to Government regimentation and Government control of the livestock industry. We recognize that your honorable committee is primarily concerned with the development of an overall agricultural program calculated to relieve the present position of the Nation's farmers. We feel confident, however, that since this hearing is being conducted in the heart of the western livestock industry you are interested in having the position of range livestock producers on the overall farm program.

We expect that the principal problem confronting your committee and the entire Congress at this time is the question of developing a more realistic and a better agricultural program so far as the basic farm commodities are concerned. We, of course, refer to such crops as corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, and so forth.

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