If any of you, whether you are on this list or not, can help us in solving this problem, I think it is essential that you stand up and speak.

Proceed, sir.

Mr. BELL. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I would like now to tell you the conditions in my county. I live in Greenwood County and the conditions in Greenwood County in my opinion are prevalent over all the counties, certainly of the Piedmont section.

In 1919 Greenwood County had 71,000 acres planted in cotton. To meet boll-weevil conditions that hit us in 1920-21, we reduced our acreage in 1929 to 41,500.

Mr. DORN. Voluntarily.

Mr. BELL. Yes, we had to change our methods to meet boll-weevil conditions.

The CHAIRMAN. That was in 1929?

Mr. BELL. Yes, sir. In 1939, partly by voluntary reduction and partly by acreage control we had 19,100 acres. Our cotton acreage has since been reduced by acreage control to less than 5,000 acres, which is either 1948 or 1949, one year we had 9,000 acres in cotton and then the other year we had something over 9,000 acres.

Now the gentleman I was talking to who was supposed to know said you would have to drop to the 1948 year.

Mr. BELL. I was asking about what it would be next year and this is the information he gave me.

Our cotton allotment acreage of 1956 will be determined by dropping the first year of the base period when over 9,000 acres were allotted and substituting in lieu thereof the year 1954, when 4,485 acres were allotted. In addition to this substantial decrease in allotted acreage brought about by a change in the years comprising the base period will be added whatever cut in acreage the Secretary of Agriculture or Congress might see fit to make it.

This decrease from 71,000 acres in 1919 to an estimated 4,000 acres or less in 1956 in a section with a history of approximately 200 years in cotton production is most astounding. Cotton has always been the chief money crop of our farmers since 1790, and is today.

This 95-percent cut in our basic money crop has made it impossible for family-sized farms to survive.

The CHAIRMAN. Under the law as it now stands the base is the last 5 years, but 1949 is not included.

Mr. BELL. He did give me the right information then.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, I am sorry to say.

Mr. BELL. Many of our farmers have been forced away from the farms to seek other employment. There cannot be a further acreage reduction without affecting those still operating a family-sized farm. The further reduction of the cotton acreage in my county will make it imperative to unite these small farms into big operations, thus destroying altogether the family-sized farmers who have contributed so much to the stability of America. I tell you, gentlemen, that the family-sized farm is just as American as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Constitution, and should not be allowed to pass from the American scene.

Gentlemen, our rural schools have gone, the post offices and churches are going. They are taking away our fourth-class rural post offices,

and that will affect our churches and finally the people are going to have to move out of the country and you won't have the familysized farms and it will all be. you might say, kind of similar to these collective farms in Russia. That is what seems to me to be the trend. The CHAIRMAN. I do not think you need worry about that. I have just returned from Russia.

Mr. BELL. All of the attributes remaining to make rural life worth while are depending on you for survival. I have never heard of a Communist operating a family-sized farm. And to preserve this unit of what I consider essential to the preservation and welfare of this Nation I offer the following proposals for your consideration: And this is the idea of a farmer who just thinks this way, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. That may give us the spark we need.

Mr. BELL. No. 1: Stop allocating public funds to develop desert and cactus growing regions into gardens of Eden to produce crops of which we now have a surplus in competition with other sections of our country naturally adapted to the growing of such crops.

The CHAIRMAN. I don't suppose you have California and Arizona in mind, and New Mexico?

Mr. BELL. They are making some fine cotton and a lot of it per acre on irrigated lands.

2. Our cotton acreage allotment system and the huge surplus held by the Government as the result of its administration of the 90-percent-parity price-support plan has caused the following practices and conditions inimical to the interests of our Nation and the welfare of the cotton farmer:

(a) Our cotton acreage reduction has encouraged and made profitable a corresponding increase in cotton acreage of foreign countries much of which has been promoted by domestic firms and corporations with domestic capital.

The CHAIRMAN. Where did you get that information?

Mr. BELL. From our exports and from what they say the world consumption is and we are not selling it. I also saw a piece in the paper the other day of a large brokerage firm; I am not going to call any names. As we go on the acreage reduction and take the cotton out of this country, they spend money in Mexico and Brazil expanding the production of those countries and this particular firm had spent approximately $30 million in the last few years.

The CHAIRMAN. Those are good Americans doing that.
Mr. BELL. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Americans.

Mr. BELL. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Don't blame the 90 percent support for that.
Mr. BELL. I don't.

We decrease ours and they increase theirs, much of which has been promoted by domestic firms and corporations with domestic capital. They take our money, and our people do this. That is my information. It could be wrong.

The CHAIRMAN. You are correct about that because I have been to South America and I saw what they did in Brazil, I saw what they did in Peru. I won't mention names either, but some of those same firms operate here in South Carolina.

Mr. BELL. Our Nation has lost standing in the world cotton export trade to the detriment of the cotton farmer. Most foreign demand is now being supplied by foreign producers.

The CHAIRMAN. At that point, do you believe that the cotton farmer, whether he be small or large, can compete in price with the peon labor of Mexico?

Mr. BELL. I do not.

The CHAIRMAN. Of Brazil?

Mr. BELL. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Of Peru?

Mr. BELL. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Of Pakistan?

Mr. BELL. No.

The CHAIRMAN. No; he could not compete.

Proceed.

Mr. BELL. Absolutely not, sir.

(6) Our Nation has lost standing in the world cotton export trade to the detriment of the cotton farmer. Most foreign demand is now being supplied by foreign producers.

(c) The large surplus of cotton now on hand makes the solution of these problems more difficult. To relieve these practices and conditions and help us regain and hold our world trade I feel the Government should sell all of the surplus cotton over and above our needs for national defense and domestic supplies on the world market at world prices placing proper import duties and quotas on foreign-made textile goods to protect our textile industry, which is the largest purchaser of American cotton.

I understand they use about 75 percent of our cotton.

The CHAIRMAN. You would be surprised at how the cotton mills have been opposed to that. That is, to a price differential abroad to what they pay here in America. Even with import regulations. You see, it would be very difficult for us to accomplish what you propose there because this committee has no jurisdiction over the whole problem. In other words, you would have to go to the Finance Committee to be able to do some of the things you are talking about now, to raise your import duties. Of course, if we could arrange to put a quota, as you propose, that may be all right but I doubt that you can do that except as to commodities that we don't produce a sufficient quantity of for our own consumption such as sugar and wool and maybe tung oil and things like that. That is where the difficulty lies.

Mr. BELL. I know it is difficult.

The CHAIRMAN. I thought I would bring it to your attention.
Mr. BELL. I appreciate it.

No. 3: Overhaul the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 relative to cotton so as to stabilize cotton production on cotton farms and aid in balancing the farming operations of such farmers. Let the act provide a continuing cotton-control program every year with a 100percent price support, raising and lowering the annual production according to current needs.

The CHAIRMAN. How would you do that? That is the point. How would you do that? It is easy to say it. How would you do it? Mr. BELL. The situation seems like this: The conditions we have confronting us are ruining the old cotton growing section of the

country. Where we had seventy-odd-thousand acres in Greenwood County, now we only have a little over 4,000 acres.

The CHAIRMAN. It may be that many farmers did what Mr. Warner did, he abandoned it.

Mr. WARNER. I didn't go far enough on that. He is contendingthe acres I lost should have gone to somebody else in Greenwood County and we could have continued to grow cotton but that is what hurts. When I lose my acres it goes somewhere else. That is his contention, I believe.

Mr. BELL. Another factor I have

The CHAIRMAN. Suppose others do what you do. That is how it was lost. We found that condition to exist in Georgia. You could transfer it from south George to north Georgia or vice versa, but they found cattle growing paid more and they abandoned cotton. That happened in many cases. It may not hold true in your own county.

Senator JOHNSTON. Speaking of reassignment, I had an amendment to the bill and put it in just a few years ago that you could reassign in the county and if the county failed to make use of it, then it went back to the State and the State could reassign it.

Mr. BELL. That is right, sir. That is what I understand it to be. The CHAIRMAN. We tried to put all kinds of gadgets in there to retain it. If that gadget isn't used the law is not to blame for it.

Mr. BELL. In my case I have been farming cotton all the time and I know that I have had an acreage allotted of 80 and 90 acres. Now mine is down to forty-odd acres.

The CHAIRMAN. Eighty or ninety?

Mr. BELL. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. That is when you started?
Mr. BELL. No, sir; that was a few years ago.
The CHAIRMAN. When controls were put on?
Mr. BELL. Yes, sir; I would say

The CHAIRMAN. There was no limit just 3 years ago, you could plant all you wanted to and before that you could do the same.

Mr. BELL. I had 82 one year, 75 one year, and last year I don't know how much more, but I got a reallotment of some that was turned back in. This year it was about 46 or 47 and they pushed me up to 54.

The only time I haven't planted as much cotton as I could plant was the time I got mixed up in acreages and you have to plant within 90 percent of your allotment but if it is within 90 percent it does count. That is the only time I failed. I fell below 90 percent. It cut the acreage.

The CHAIRMAN. Why did you fall below 90?

Mr. BELL. I got mixed up in my acreage. I had 75 allotted and I didn't have but 65 which cut me about two acres and a half that the county would lose on that allotment for the next year.

The CHAIRMAN. How much more has your cotton production increased per acre to what it produced, say, when you had the 75 acres. Mr. BELL. That depends on the season more than anything else. The CHAIRMAN. The Lord pleased almost all of us all over the country with good seasons this year.

Mr. BELL. Last year, my crop usually runs about three-quarters of a bale per acre, and this year it is running approximately a bale to

the acre?

The CHAIRMAN. A bale?

Mr. BELL. Yes, sir; but I attribute that to the season. I will mention something else if I may in this connection. We hear a lot about the increase in production per acre killing the effects of acreage control. I will tell you what causes that more than anything else. It is because a man operating a family-sized farm who has to make a living for himself and his children and go to all the expenses necessary to operate the farm, he has to make so much or he has to get out of business. He does everything he can to make a certain amount of cotton and he has to do that to stay in busines. That is why, the way I figure it, that is the real reason you have such an increase in acreage production. I think that is certainly the case in my community.

The CHAIRMAN. I have been figuring a little bit here. You made on your 54 acres in 1954 just about 2 bales less than you did on 75 acres just a few years ago.

Mr. BELL. I use the same fertilizer that I did then and worked it the same, I thought. It was a difference in the season. I didn't make any special effort because I had that cotton acreage. I always have it now so that I wouldn't get mixed up like I did a few years ago. I have it surveyed by the Government fellows so I know just what I am putting in.

I had 53.7 acres where I was allotted 54.

Senator SCOTT. Have your improved varieties of cotton helped you? Mr. BELL. I planted the same kind. I get new seed every few years; it is Coker wilt-resistant cotton. We lost a lot from people jumping in and out, and that is why I said stabilize it. The in-and-out farmers get acreage this year and don't turn it in, don't farm it, and they are just really not regular cotton farmers and therefore that is lost to our county on the next acreage allotment. That is one reason we have lost so much in addition to what Mr. Warner just stated.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed, sir.

No. 4: Provide a minimum allotment of 5 acres for any cottongrowing farm family dependent on the farm for support. We have people that come in there that lose a job where they are working and they get up in age and can't find another job in that same line of work. They were farmers before they went there; they had to leave the farm; they come out on the farm to try to make a living for themselves; they are independent people; they don't want to get on the public welfare and such as that. They want to make their own living. They allot them 2 or 3 acres and they can't make a living to save their lives.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think it is fair to the other segment of farming if you let a man go in and out and if he wants to plant 5 acres this year let him, and if he wants to plant something else let him get out of it and come back?

Mr. BELL. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course not. When the law was first passed here, the law I fostered with the late Senator Bankhead and others, we provided for a minimum of 5 acres. What happened?

In many instances farmers wouldn't plant it. Those fellows who were in and out lost that because they wouldn't plant it, don't you see?