The CHAIRMAN. Let's take your farm as an example just to point up some of the problems in the light of what this committee has already heard. You say you have 700 acres, 230 acres of cotton. How do you handle the other?

Mr. GILFOIL. This year I have considerable acreage in soybeans. The CHAIRMAN. Now are those soybeans planted on land that would have been planted to cotton or that were diverted from last year? Mr. GILFOIL. Yes, sir; in some cases. It would be difficult for me to say exactly how much.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me put it to you this way to bring it out more clearly:

During the last 3 years, how much of your acreage was diverted, that is, not planted to cotton but diverted because of your program? Mr. GILFOIL. Close to 50 percent.

The CHAIRMAN. Fifty percent?

Mr. GILFOIL. Yes.

Senator THYE. In other words, if we might be specific, you now have 230 acres; your total was how many acres of cotton?

Mr. GILFOIL. In the neighborhood of 450.

Senator THYE. About 450 acres of cotton.

Mr. GILFOIL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, in other words, taking that as the approximate acreage you have that would mean that the 220 or 230 acres that you have planted to cotton heretofore has been planted soybeans and what else?

Mr. GILFOIL. Soybeans, oats, some cases wheat, but not much.

The CHAIRMAN. Wheat?

Mr. GILFOIL. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. I didn't know you grew wheat here.

Mr. GILFOIL. Very good wheat.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. How many acres of wheat?

Mr. GILFOIL. I didn't have any this year. I would say in our parish, which corresponds to a county, there is probably a thousand or 1,500 acres this year.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. What will it make per acre?

Mr. GILFOIL. General average was around 35 bushels, it ran as high as 45 or 50.

The CHAIRMAN. That is better than they grew up in North Dakota, wasn't it?

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Tone it down a little.

Senator YOUNG. What is your price support?

Mr. GILFOIL. I couldn't tell you because most of them sold it that didn't have any storage and very little-

Senator YOUNG. What did you get on the cash market?

Mr. GILFOIL. I couldn't say. I didn't have any personally this year and I didn't concern myself too much with it.

Senator YOUNG. Did you plant that wheat on diverted acres? Mr. GILFOIL. Largely, yes, sir. It is hard to differentiate there between what is diverted and what would have been done otherwise. Senator THYE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to know what this gentleman's production on soybeans is.

Mr. GILFOIL. Well, I hope my combine is running today and when I left it was cutting about 50 bushels to the acre.

64440-56-pt. 5-27

Senator THYE. Soybeans?

Mr. GILFOIL. Yes.

Senator THYE. Man, we want to keep you in cotton just as long

as we can.

Senator EASTLAND. Let me ask you this: What was your average soybean production last year?

Mr. GILFOIL. About 30 bushels.

Senator EASTLAND. What was it the year before?

Mr. GILFOIL. I think historically it has been 30 to 35.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gilfoil, of course I knew that some wheat was planted but more to be used for stock feed.

Mr. GILFOIL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Now is that on the increase in the State?

Mr. GILFOIL. Wheat?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. GILFOIL. Yes, sir; I would say definitely so.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Mr. Gilfoil, can't you see the problem that it poses to the wheatgrowers and the graingrowers of the North? Mr. GILFOIL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. They depend on a support price in many instance and curtail their acreage. Can't you see the problem it poses on any program where you can take your diverted acres and compete with farmers who curtail theirs in other parts of the country?

Mr. GILFOIL. I am well aware of that.

The CHAIRMAN. I am sure that something is going to be done in Congress about it. I heard a lot of determined Senators say that it wasn't fair for the Government to protect wheat farmers, for the Government to protect corn farmers, and then permit farmers in other areas who also are protected to use their diverted acres to plant crops that compete with those protected in other places. So have you any suggestion to make about that? I want to tell you it is going to be before Congress and what is going to happen I don't know, but it will be a pretty hot issue.

Mr. GILFOIL. The only suggestion, I don't know that I am in a position, I am certainly in no position to speak for the organization on that

The CHAIRMAN. I want you as a farmer, forget your organization, let's talk to Gilfoil and the farmer and I wish more of you would do that from here on. Let's talk about Gilfoil the farmer.

Mr. GILFOIL. I know that a whole lot better.

The CHAIRMAN. Forget about your Louisiana Cotton Council and the Arkansas Cotton Council and Missouri Cotton Council. Let's go to Gilfoil the farmer. What are your views on that?

We are going to have to deal with this now and we may have to trample on somebody's toes. We need suggestions. We don't want what we might classify as a negative answer. We want you to think about what is happening right here in my good State of Louisiana where we have been curtailing production of rice. Now you have it over in Mississippi, a lot of farmers who used to use cotton land to plant cotton are now planting rice, which competes with the Louisiana growers here, and with California growers also. You can readily see it poses a problem that we are going to have to deal with. Now I would like to get not only your views but the views of others who may be

affected and give us some light on the subject. I want you to bear in mind we are going to have to settle it someway because it will be necessary to do something about it. It is a certainty from what I can understand, from what I learned on this trip, getting views from various farmers of the Nation, that something will have to be done with these diverted acres to keep them out of production.

Many witnesses suggested that a way to do that would be for the Government to provide a payment, a rental, on that acreage. If you think along that line or if you have any other suggestion to make, this committee would be glad to hear from you, as from other witnesses who will testify later.

Mr. GILFOIL. Well, sir

The CHAIRMAN. Let me add this, that in addition to the proposal that I have just suggested on the diverted acres there is also a proposal that has been advanced, I would say at most all meetings, that a certain percentage of the entire acreage be set aside on a farm and not planted to any crop.

In other words, it amounts to a reduction of our plant in the production of these commodities that we have in such abundance at the moment. With those two proposals in mind, and if you have any suggestion to offer in addition which will show us how these proposals could be implemented or administered we want to hear from you. Mr. GILFOIL. Well, sir, I would like to say this, that insofar as this proposition of prohibiting producers from one area from growing crops that might compete with producers in other areas, as you say, put on diverted acreage crops that do compete with other areas that if action is necessary along that line that rather than to forbid these producers to plant those crops that you should have a total allotment on all crops.

I think when you begin forbidding

The CHAIRMAN. When you say on all crops, would you refer primarily to farmers producing grain that is in turn fed to poultry and livestock?

Mr. GILFOIL. I don't see how you could do otherwise when it would be so difficult of administration to determine what end use was going to be made of the crop. I don't see how you could do it.

Senator THYE. Might I ask a question in just a little different manner? Would you agree that your total farm plant is too large, the total number of acres tilled and harvested annually is too great? Mr. GILFOIL. No, sir; I think not.

Senator THYE. Then if you think not, and assuming that you cannot grow but so many acres of cotton, you then might grow so many acres of wheat from which you get a production of 35 bushels to the acre. If that goes on to the market, whether it is millable or not, it is going to be that many more bushels of wheat for the market to bear.

Mr. GILFOIL. That is right.

Senator THYE. I am going to ask one other question with respect to soybeans. If you grow soybeans, and Indiana has normally been. recognized as a soybean-producing area, but we have commenced to grow them also in the Northwest-northern Iowa and Minnesota and the Dakotas-if you divert from cotton to soybeans or to wheat, are you not going to come into competition with another soybean- or

wheat-producing area of the United States? The result would be that we would just add to the total production of this Nation where there may already be an excess of the commodity. Therefore, isn't it a question of our farm plant being too big at the present time? Mr. GILFOIL. Well, sir, that might be, but it is a question that is very hard to determine and it is very hard to answer.

Senator THYE. That is the reason we are here at the present time. I would never be away from home today just for the sake of getting away, but I do feel a responsibility, and we are going to have to find an answer. The farm economy is down. Surpluses are mounting. The cost to the Treasury in holdings and storage are getting to a proportion that the general public is revolting against us as producers. Therefore, is the farm plant too big? I think you would agree that it is pretty large. If we have to reduce, how do we reduce it?

We can't reduce overall production if it is a matter of shifting from one crop to another. It does not help me if they force me to reduce my corn acreage if someone in Missouri is permitted to divert from cotton to corn production. Do you see?

Mr. GILFOIL. Yes.

Senator THYE. That is what we are faced with. Therefore the question is: Is our farm plant too big? If so, how do we go about in an orderly manner reducing it? You must think of that just as we, the Members of the Congress, must think of it because we, in Congress, will have to legislate on the question.

Now, if we curtail in one area but you expand in another, the United States still has a surplus beyond its ability to sell or to export or to consume domestically. There the question is. You had better ponder it because we are only human, and we, in Congress, must do what is best for everyone.

A final question: How much can you make by growing cotton on an acre as compared with an acre of soybeans?

Mr. GILFOIL. That would depend on a great many things. This year we are making more on soybeans than on cotton.

Senator THYE. What would be the average as a general practice?
Mr. GILFOIL. I would hate to try to answer that.

Senator THYE. What are the factors this year that made possible soybean yields which were so favorable in relation to cotton?

Mr. GILFOIL. We had a great deal of rain through the midsummer in my area.

Senator THYE. If you hadn't had it, your soybeans would not have yielded?

Mr. GILFOIL. Not unless they were irrigated.

The CHAIRMAN. May I state this to Mr. Gilfoil, that this situation is not peculiar to Louisiana. We found it in Oklahoma, and we found it in Kansas where many diverted acres had been planted to different sorghums.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Grain sorghums.

The CHAIRMAN. It is a problem that faces all of us.

In north Texas they are using their diverted acres to plant grain sorghums and believe it or not the production of sorghum has increased over a 3-year period from 134 million bushels to 236 million bushels. I merely want to point out to my good Louisiana friends here that it

is not only the Louisiana farmers who may be doing an injustice to other farmers in the Nation, but it is also done by other areas.

We are confronted with the problem of having to settle that. Senator SCHOEPPEL. Before you answer this $64 plus question, I want to ask you about wheat so that we get this thing in perspective because, as Senator Ellender says, these diverted acres, what they are going into, affects us all in a different way. Now what do you get per bushel of wheat on the market down here? Is it somewhere between $1.65 and $1.75?

Senator THYE. Could anybody answer that?

The CHAIRMAN. Give your name for the record, please.

Mr. CAMPBELL. It is around $2. My name is Campbell, from Vermilion Parish.

The CHAIRMAN. What did you sell wheat for this year?

Mr. CAMPBELL. $1.50. You have a misunderstanding. Most of the wheat grown in this State is grown for feed, not for flour. The CHAIRMAN. I understand.

Mr. CAMPBELL. And seed.

Mr. ADAMS. I am Charles Adams, Hughes, Ark. We grow quite a bit of wheat in Arkansas in my territory. We grow good wheat and make high yield and we sold from $1.68 to $2.02 a bushel this past year. The CHAIRMAN. What was your yield?

Mr. ADAMS. Fifty to sixty bushels per acre.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. I would like to ask another question:

In order to keep this in perspective and before you answer the question-and believe me, we are trying to get a viewpoint here I am very much interested in your operational picture. If you raised that much wheat per acre in your area, can you make more money out of wheat than you could out of your cotton acreage, acre for acre?

Mr. ADAMS. Not ordinarily; no, sir.

Senator SCHOEPPEL. Would it come near that?

Mr. ADAMS. That is a difficult question to answer because those crops vary from year to year. Frequently we have wet springs in this part of the country.

The CHAIRMAN. We can get that from others.

Senator Young has a question.

Senator YOUNG. I would like to get the whole answer to this question: You live in Arkansas, a commercial wheat area?

Mr. ADAMS. Yes, we have allotments and also plant a lot of wheat on 15 acres minimum, which does not have a support. It does not get under loan but you can market it without being penalized. Senator YOUNG. Let me ask this witness a question.

Mr. GILFOIL. Could I finish the question I was asked by Senator Schoeppel?

I believe I said that frequently in the spring of the year in this section of the country we have very wet springs and one reason I didn't grow any wheat this year, and the reason I don't expect to grow much again is that I have had experience on several occasions we had wet spring disease attack the wheat and a beautiful wheat crop would come up with nothing and frequently we didn't send the combines to the field. Cotton is historically our best crop and gives the greatest return for dollar investment and I think that by far the