Mr. MERRILL. That is right; he could not qualify for an old-farm allotment purely on the basis of growing excess acreage.

Mr. GATHINGS. And the burden would be on him to go to the committee and ask that committee to intercede for him and probably to the State to get a new-farm allotment?

Mr. MERRILL. That is right. And I might point out here that Mr. Matthews introduced, along with Congressman Cramer, of Florida, legislation last year that excluded the production of green peanuts from the act. That legislation did far more to help the small farmer in his area that had not grown peanuts than anything of this nature would hinder him.

Mr. MATTHEWs. You still would not have any idea in Florida, say, of this six-thousand-odd growers, as to the number that might be affected, let us say, in that they could not qualify for a new allotment purely on that basis?

Mr. MERRILL. Well, Congressman, let me point out that of the 6,400 farms-that is farms, not peanut growers-you will have approximately 12 to 134 growers per farm throughout the Nation, maybe higher or lower than that in Florida-I am not sufficiently acquainted with the tenant situation there, but the farms that you are speaking of will be farms over and above this 6,400 and in the past those that have received allotments on the basis of excess acreage are included, but there would be a number over and above this.

Now, that number will be relatively small because, as you pointed out earlier, most of the farmers that are not equipped to grow peanuts are satisfied to grow only 1 acre.

So I think that the number in your State that this would affect in the future would be relatively small.

Mr. HAGEN. Are any new-farm allotments being granted in peanuts?

Mr. MERRILL. Yes, sir; and I am happy that you asked me that question.

This year there were approximately 4,000 acres of peanuts that were made available to be apportioned to so-called new farms. That is the farms on which peanuts were not produced in the 3-year period before the year for which the allotment is being established.

There were insufficient persons or farms eligible to receive the entire acreage. Therefore the Department had approximately 950 acres that were not used for new farms after we had established allotments that we considered equitable for all of the eligible farms. The 950 acres which were left over were prorated back to the States on the same basis as the original apportionment was made and it is constantly being used in the States to make adjustments; so we actually held back from the national allotment more acreage for new farms than was needed. The same was true last year.

Mr. HAGEN. The new-farm allotment comes directly through the Secretary of Agriculture without regard to States' lines?

Mr. MERRILL. No, the new-farm reserve is held by the Secretary of Agriculture and he determined the acreage not to exceed 1 percent of the national allotment which is the maximum under the law that should be held back for new farms.

The farmers who are interested in obtaining new-farm allotments for their farms go to the county ASC office and fill out an application which is nothing more than a questionnaire. He is asked what acre

on the floor with determined opposition to destroy the peanut program. It would seem to me it would be utterly foolhardy for the small band of Congressmen who represent peanut areas to go over upon the floor and battle for any peanut legislation at this time. Either 14 or 16, I do not remember which, represents the Members of the Congress who are interested in peanuts and have peanuts in their congressional districts. That is a might small number when you operate upon the idea that we have 435 Members of Congress. I have seen these vicious attacks made upon the floor and the last time-there is not a one here who does not remember it-on the teller vote we were absolutely defeated. Had there not been a lot of work done during the night, we would have lost the entire peanut program. I remember on the rollcall vote we saved peanuts as 1 of the 6 basic crops by 8

votes.

Now, gentlemen, I just simply cannot be a party to putting upon the block the future of the peanut growers in my area and in your areas. There are lots of things we could say about this legislation but primarily what I am trying to say to the Members who are interested in peanuts is this: For God's sake, let peanuts alone now. You cannot win. We just simply stand to lose. In my opinion if we are going to try to render effective representation to our people, I think we should know when it is time to halt as well as to know when it is time to attempt to act.

That is a thought I want to get over. I want to register my complete objection to our attempting to bring any peanut legislation out on the floor this year of any kind whatever.

But before I leave I do want to say to the chairman that we have with us this morning my colleague, John Pilcher, and I will say in behalf of John Pilcher that I doubt seriously that there is a man in the Congress who is sounder or knows more about agriculture than John Pilcher, my friend and my colleague and my next-door neighbor. John will certainly have a fine contribution to make to this subcommittee this morning as he discusses this peanut legislation.

In addition to that, we have the president of our Georgia Farm Bureau, Hon. John Duncan, who wants the privilege of appearing before you.

Additionally, we have a distinguished former member of the House of Representative, a man who is from the district that I have the honor to represent at this time. He considers this legislation of such importance and the defeat of this legislation of such importance that he has come up here from Americus, Ga., and he wants the privilege of testifying before you this morning.

We have Hon. Walter Randolph, president of the Alabama Farm Bureau, and I am satisfied that there are representatives from Florida.

Mr. MATTHEWSs. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FORRESTER. Yes.

Mr. MATTHEWs. The president of the Florida Farm Bureau sent his regrets but said he wanted to be associated with the gentleman from Georgia and they could speak 100 percent for the peanut growers of Florida.

Mr. FORRESTER. So far as any farm program is concerned, you should look at that from an overall picture. In lots of phases in this

agricultural program we do not think we are getting exactly what might be coming to us. But we think even then we are doing a whole lot better under our farm program than if we did not have a farm program. We are willing, for the time being at least, in order to try to preserve the situation as is, to go along with some of the burdens we think we are assuming and have been assuming for some time. I wanted to inject that.

Mr. Chairman, if you will excuse me now, I will go on over to my committee. I appreciate the opportunity of appearing before you. Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you, Mr. Forrester.

Mr. Pilcher, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. J. L. PILCHER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA

Mr. PILCHER. First I want to say I do not know how to get up and oppose what Mr. Abbitt and Mr. Burleson have put in. I do not believe I have ever disagreed with them on a single bill before. But I want to concur in what the Congressman from Florida and my colleague from Georgia, Mr. Forrester, had to say.

In March the peanut section of the Georgia Farm Bureau had a meeting. They passed resolutions that they did not want any peanut legislation at this time. A few days later the shellers of that area had a meeting and adopted unanimously the same resolution that our growers adopted. By the way, our growers were represented by the Florida and Georgia growers. A little later the Alabama growers met and adopted the same resolution.

I am one who believes that we cannot afford to get to fighting among ourselves, not only on peanuts but on tobacco, dairy, wheat, corn. If these bills are introduced in order to get tied onto some omnibus farm bill that might come up this time or some special legislation, I think we are going to find ourselves all crossed up, section against section, commodity against commodity, and it is not going to be good for the agricultural people anywhere in the United States. I think if we ever get any farm legislation, it has to represent all of the basic crops.

If you want to put it on a selfish standpoint, you take tobacco in my section. We have a far better case to present to a committee of this House on tobacco than these peanut boys have. The type tobacco raised in Georgia last year, there was less than six-tenths of 1 percent of it that went into the Stabilization Corporation, whereas 21 percent of the North Carolina tobacco went into the Stabilization Corporation. Even though the Carolina tobacco has to be tied and our tobacco untied, our tobacco brought 4 cents a pound more than the North Carolina tobacco last year.

Even with that, I have told my tobacco growers I would not introduce legislation unless I was forced to get the tobacco growers fighting among tobacco growers.

We are having a hard enough time when we all try to stick together, not only in the South but in the West and in the North. I think that agriculture has to stick together all the way down the line. I just think that special bills like this that favor one special section are harmful not only to the peanut industry but harmful to the entire agricultural program. Thank you.

legislation gets on the floor, I want all of the facts and figures about peanuts, their effect on our economy and so forth.

Now, what is this section 358 referred to on page 2 of the bill? Mr. MERRILL. Section 358 is the section governing the referendum on peanuts when the farmers vote. That is section 358 (a).

Section 358 (b) establishes the date and so forth by which the Secretary must set his national allotment, national quota.

Section 358 (c) says how the national acreage allotment will be apportioned to the States, and then it goes on into some other things there. You have the so-called short-supply determination and so forth.

Mr. ABBITT. Does it have anything whatever to do with saying what crops are basic?

Mr. MERRILL. No, sir.

Mr. ABBITT. Do you have a section that does?

Mr. MERRILL. I think, Congressman, that is in the price-support legislation.

Mr. ABBITT. I just want to be sure when we get on the floor.

Mr. MERRILL. I believe it is the same problem that you faced on the green-peanut legislation.

Mr. ABBITT. That is right; and was this the same section of the bill in that act?

Mr. MERRILL. I am sorry, I have forgotten just exactly which section that went in.

Mr. ABBITT. I wonder if you would check and let us know.

Mr. MERRILL. I will, but it is the same part, may I say that, we are talking about here. It would be section 358 or 359 and would be a part.

Mr. ABBITT. It has nothing whatever to do with the basics?
Mr. MERRILL. No, sir.

Mr. ABBITT. The other phase of the question I want to ask, some of our people have complained some about people producing peanuts on a farm that has no allotment and one man works many different places. Do you know anything about that problem?

Mr. MERRILL. Yes, sir; that is a problem and one that Mr. Matthews is concerned with

Mr. ABBITT. I don't know whether I made it plain to you or not, but in some areas one operator will plant an acre or less in peanuts and he will do that on a number of different farms and so while he had no allotment, he was still marketing them and paying no penalty. I have had a little complaint about that.

Mr. MERRILL. Here is the situation as I understand it: Let us assume that I have a farm with a 25-acre peanut allotment. Now, that is sufficient acreage for me to own my own equipment, my picker, and so forth.

Now, I find out under this law that I can grow 1 acre of peanuts. on any given number of farms. So I find several farms that do not have peanut allotments and make arrangements with the owners to let me produce 1 acre of peanuts on each of these farms. You must keep in mind that I have the equipment and everything to grow peanuts with, and so I turn around and plant 1 acre of peanuts on each of these farms.

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Ga., back in November with the grower groups from the other two major peanut-producing areas in an attempt to get together on some possible legislation and that it was stated in that meeting and is a matter of record that the resulting proposed legislation coming out of that meeting was unanimously accepted by those there with the exception of two flagged points, I believe we had a point flagged and I believe the southeastern area had one. But otherwise the meeting was generally harmonious and it was generally recognized by those present that the present peanut program had proved to be vulnerable in certain respects in the past.

The meeting was very constructive in that we were trying to come up with something that would put our peanut program in a more stable position and for the very reasons that have been enumerated here this morning. We do not intend that this would tend to disrupt the harmony that now exists among the areas. We have in mind something constructive.

We continued to work in our area after the meeting in Atlanta on a peanut bill. We had a subsequent meeting in February of the three areas again in Washington. At that time two of the areas still sensed the need for continued work on some type of peanut legislation, but one of the areas for some reason had changed its viewpoint in this respect and did not wish to go ahead with the legislation. We are continuing to work with grower people from the other two areas trying to come up with something more constructive than the present program. We think that if we wait until maybe a later date we would not be in as good a position to do something as we are at the present time.

That is all I have to say.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Do you have any idea that you and the growers and shellers can all get together before we complete these hearings? Mr. WILSON. We are certainly willing to try, sir.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you.

Mr. ABBITT. Did I understand you to say some time in November 1957 that the growers or their representatives from the VirginiaCarolina area, Southwest and Southeast had a joint meeting? Mr. WILSON. That is correct, in Atlanta, Ga.

Mr. ABBITT. Was there substantial agreement as to what was to be done and how you were to proceed so far as legislation was concerned?

Mr. WILSON. There was. The grower group from Virginia-Carolina had previously distributed some information to the grower representatives from the other areas so that they might have a chance to look at it and so we would have a starting point upon which to construct something. I believe that was sent out 4 or 5 weeks prior to the Atlanta meeting and went to representatives of all areas. The purpose of the Atlanta meeting was to go over the proposals and change them as the majority saw fit. That is what was done.

At the conclusion of the meeting there seemed to be general agreement on all points. I believe the minutes of the meeting will show that, with the exception of two points.

Mr. ABBITT. Do you have the minutes of the meeting?

Mr. WILSON. I do.

Mr. ABBITT. May I see them?

Mr. WILSON. Yes, sir.