Mr. WHITTINGTON. You can transfer anything else except conservation and public-works activities.

Mr. HAMLIN. "Not engaged in conserving the natural resources or in carrying on public-works activities." Does that have any

relation to that?

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Yes; it limits the transfer. That is the language?

Mr. CHAPMAN. Yes.

I want to quote from an article by Joshua Stamp appearing in the New York Times. He said, in part, "One cannot safely legislate beyond the capacity of experienced administration to execute, for it is not enough to pass acts perfect in drafting and principle and applied at the appropriate time; there must be enough skilled administrators drawn from various types of public service, paid or unpaid, to carry them through. There is little sense of the truth that administration is both a tradition and a technique."

STATEMENT OF FRED BRENCKMAN, THE NATIONAL GRANGE

Mr. GASQUE. The next witness is Mr. Fred Brenckman, of the National Grange.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. The National Grange has 35 State units and is composed of both men and women. We have approximately 800,000 members. If there is one thing upon which the members of the National Grange are united it is opposition to the transfer of our national forests to the Department of the Interior. The language of section 2 of H. R. 7712 plainly indicates that the plan is to transfer our national forests, the Soil Erosion Service, and, possibly, the Geological Survey to the Department of the Interior. In the mature opinion of the National Grange this would be a monumental mistake.

The National Grange has repeatedly gone on record at its annual conventions as being unalterably opposed to the transfer of our national forests from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior.

At our last session we advocated the transfer of the Soil Erosion Service to the Department of Agriculture, where it properly belongs. This transfer has now been made and is satisfactory to us.

It should be remembered that in the early years of our Forest Service this agency of the Government was located in the Department of the Interior. For sound and practical reasons it was transferred to the Department of Agriculture by President Theodore Roosevelt, a pioneer in the cause of conservation and one of the best and truest friends it ever had.

A large part of the activities of the Department of Agriculture relate directly to conservation. These include such important phases as the maintenance and improvement of soil productivity, farm, forest, and range production, watershed maintenance and improvement, the propagation of wild life, together with the prevention and control of animal diseases.

The Department of Agriculture has always been conservationminded, and its record of achievements testifies to the soundness of its policies and the capability of its personnel.

H. R. 7712 would permit the breaking down of the coordination which has been developed in the conservation of renewable resources within the Department of Agriculture.

It is worthy of note that, broadly speaking, the Department of the Interior has dealt primarily with nonrenewable resources such as coal, oil, and other minerals. One of its chief functions in the past was to dispose of agricultural land rather than to promote its suitable use. Many are of the opinion that it was a mistake for the Congress to place the administration of the Taylor grazing act under the juris-. diction of the Department of the Interior.

The question has been raised in connection with the hearings being conducted on this bill as to whether or not trees may be properly classed as a crop. The idea of considering trees in this light is not far-fetched at all. The tree crop is susceptible of renewal and management in accordance with known sciences and practices.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his Atlente, G., speech of October 24, 1933, recognized trees as crops when he said that-

* * *

Everyone knows that we are using up our American timber supply much faster than the annual growth of new timber. Because we are a young nation-because apparently limitless forests have stood at our door-we have declined up to now to think of the future. Other nations whose primeval forests were cut off a thousand years ago have been growing tree crops for many hundreds of years. * * I am convinced that herein lies a fertile field, not only for the legitimate investment of capital, but also for the employemnt of labor.

*

FARM WOOD LOTS

Woodlands owned by farmers aggregate more than one-fourth of this 495,000,000 acres of commercial forest lands. Farm woodlands occupy more acres than any other crops on American farms. They furnish timber, fuel, fence posts, and supplemental cash income to 2,500,000 farmers. Effective woodland management is, therefore, a vital part of national agriculture. Federal cooperation in farm forestry is authorized under the Clarke-McNary Law. Besides providing for the prevention and suppression of forest fires, the foresttaxation inquiry and the insurance study, the Clarke-McNary law specifically provides, in section 4, for the distribution of forest planting stock to farmers, and, in section 5, for farm forestry extension which is administered by the Department of Agriculture's Office of Cooperative Extension Work. It would be a real mistake to take part of the extension work to the Department of the Interior and leave part of it in the Department of Agriculture.

In section 5 of the Clarke-McNary Act, 33 extension foresters are employed in 32 States and Puerto Rico.

COMMERCIAL FORESTRY AND AGRICULTURE

In some regions successful agriculture can continue only if forest management and utilization create and maintain nearby markets for farm crops. In other regions forest work and its cash incomes are necessary to tide over populations which obtain most of the family food through work on farms. In other regions the Nation is confronted with the task of replacing, with forest crops, agricultural production on ɛbandoned or worn-out farms.

FOREST LAND AND FORAGE

Forest land forage is vital in many sections to agriculture. Within the continental United States some 334,000,000 acres are grazed by domestic livestock. In parts of the East this forage occurs largely

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on woodlands owned by farmers, and into which millions of farmers turn their livestock. In the South, not so much of the forest land on which forage occurs is owned by farmers, but it is essential, just the same, to the local population.

Forage on the national forests in the West is used by almost 1,500,000 cattle and some 6,000,000 sheep under permits issued to some 26,000 individuals. And these individuals own or control more than 4,500,000 acres of improved farming land and 22,000,000 acres of privately owned grazing lands. National forest ranges in the West have been under administration for more than 30 years, under a system which allows only the number of stock that the amount and the condition of the available forage justifies.

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR ON FORESTRY AND AGRICULTURE

Secretary of the Interior, Ethen Allen Hitchcock, in his annual report for the year ending June 30, 1901, said, in part, "Forestry, dealing as it does with a source of wealth produced by the soil, is properly an agricultural subject."

In 1903, the same Secretary of the Interior reiterated that opinion and concurred in the recommendation of his Commissioner of the General Land Office, who said:

I therefore recommend that all business of the General Land Office pertaining to forest reserves, except lieu land selections and other matters pertaining to or affecting titles, be transferred to the Bureau of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture.

This transfer was effectuated by the act of February 1, 1905 (33 Stat. 628); and a later act changed the name "Forest Reserves" to "National Forests."

Mr. MCKEOUGH. The Forest Service is in the Department of Agriculture and has been there since when?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. February 1, 1905.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Do the records indicate any series of recommendations for reforestation, such as President Roosevelt has now recommended, during the period the Department of Agriculture has had charge of the forests?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. Do you mean any recommendations for reforestation?

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Yes.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. Yes; I feel certain.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Can you cite them?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. I cannot; but I do know that the conservation movement originated with the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. I am speaking about the replenishing of the forests.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. I know that Gifford Pinchot, who was Chief Forester until he was dismissed by President Taft, was a strong believer in the thought of reforestation, and I know that the advocacy of reforestation was not confind to him.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. The only one I remember is the one by President Cleveland. Which is the more important to the farmer, from the standpoint of income, the income from the forest or the income from the livestock?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. I should say the income from livestock.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Is the gentleman familiar with the pending reciprocal tariff agreement with Argentine now in the Senate awaiting approval or disapproval, which agreement would permit the possibility of introducing again the hoof-and-mouth disease?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. To hear you say that it has been referred to the Senate surprised me. Is that a fact?

Mr. MCKEOUGH. I understand that it is.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. Under the reciprocal tariff act it is not necessary to refer anything to the Senate for confirmation, because the Congress delegated that right to the Executive.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. But subject to approval of the Senate.
Mr. BRENCKMAN. No; not subject to approval.

The National Grange was one of the farm organizations that opposed the reciprocal tariff act. We pointed out that under its provisions it would be possible to suspend such regulations as the quarantine against the foot-and-mouth disease; against such laws as the Taber-Lenroot Milk Act, setting up a standard for sanitation.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Have you asked the Department of Agriculture to take up your cause in that?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. We understand the Department of Agriculture to be in favor of it, so we did not say anything to the Department about the matter.

Mr. QUINN. You referred to the service of Gifford Pinchot to the cause of forestry. Did you mean lip service?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. Whether we agree or disagree with everything Mr. Pinchot has done or said, yet he deserves to be classified as perhaps the leading advocate of conservation in this country.

Mr. QUINN. I know him. I served in the Pennsylvania Legislature with him.

Mr. HOUSTON. As I understand, grazing activities are under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, and forestry activities are under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture? Mr. BRENCKMAN. Yes.

Mr. HOUSTON. I understand that there is no opposition in the Department of the Interior to the transfer of grazing activities to the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. I am reminded that only on the public domain is grazing within the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. Mr. HAMLIN. As a Granger by nature and membership, your work goes a good way with me; but I want to ask you whether in the line of grazing within forests the Department of Agriculture has been successful during the last 2 years.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. As I understand, there has been a tendency to overgraze, and the feeling is that there should be a lessening of this. Grazing there should be kept at a lower level.

Mr. HAMLIN. It has not suited you.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. I do not think it has suited everybody. There has been overgrazing, as I understand.

Mr. GASQUE. The time of the witness has expired.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. I should like to have more time, in view of the fact that my time has been taken by yielding to questions.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. I move that the gentleman be given 5 minutes

more.

Mr. HAMLIN. I second the motion.

Mr. RICH. Referring to grazing activities, we have in the Forest Service grazing on the high lands in the summertime and we have in the Department of the Interior grazing on low lands in the winter-time. Do you not believe they should be segregated?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. I am not in position to give a very intelligent. answer to that question. I have not given a great deal of thought to it.

Mr. RICH. Why should one department graze cattle in. wintertime and another department graze them in summertime.

Mr. BRENCKMAN. That is a matter of governmental administration.. Mr. RICH. You believe that is wrong, do you not?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. Probably it is.

So far from favoring the transfer of the national forests, the Soil Erosion Service, or the Biological Survey to the Department of the Interior, the Grange has for years advocated that the Bureau of Irrigation and Reclamation be taken from the Department of the Interior and given to the Department of Agriculture..

During the presidency of Mr. Harding he, like nearly all our other Presidents, had ideas about reorganizing governmental departments, bureaus, and agencies. He appointed a commission to study the question, and Mr. Walter Brown, of Ohio, and later Postmaster General, was head of that commission. That commission was in favor of transferring the Reclamation Service to the Department of Agriculture, but it so happened that the head of that part of the commission was also head of the Reclamation Service and he objected to that transfer. When asked to explain his objections to transfer of that service to the Department of Agriculture he said the Department of Agriculture would not let him do what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to reclaim more land to raise food for the millions, notwith-standing the fact that the farmers had been

Mr. GIFFORD. What did you say about the Biological Survey?

Mr. BRENCKMAN. We would have it remain within the Department. of Agriculture. A great deal of wildlife is on the farms. I will give you an idea of the way in which the Biological Survey and the farmers. work together. There has been a great deal of talk about game as a crop. I was very much interested in a helpful book prepared by the Biological Survey and distributed to the farmers of the country, the book giving instructions as to how to propagate and protect game and telling of the profits that might be made from it. It shows how the work of the Biological Survey and the farmers dovetail.

The Department of Agriculture is better qualified to decide when and under what conditions new land should be brought under cultivation than any other department of the Government.

Our reclamation projects necessarily involve problems for soil. physicists and economists, agricultural engineers, agronomists, horticulturists, livestock and dairy specialists, entomologist, forestry experts, and agricultural economists trained in the special problems of farm organization and farm management. The Department of Agriculture has such a staff, while the Department of the Interiorhas not. Every effort should be made to prevent overlapping, duplication and unnecessary expense in the conduct of government activities.

Mr. GIFFORD. Do you want the Bureau of Fisheries there too?