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Show Farm News From Washington D.C. THE COTTON PROBLEM LUNKHEAD ACT STANDS THE NEW AAA SE-VP REACHES HE SAME END MAY NOT BE VALID From the News Washington Bureau Last week the agricultural and legal experts of the Administration Administra-tion were busy drafting the new farm relief measure, necessary to replace the AAA recently outlawed outlaw-ed by the Supreme Court. The new measure attempts to preserve the fundamental objectives without with-out requiring farmers to enter into in-to contracts to reduce the production produc-tion of certain basic crops. A system sys-tem of bounties is provided, under which farmers who certify that they have managed their land in the manner prescribed shall be paid. Of course, the way prescribed prescrib-ed will regulate and control the production of such crops as cotton, cot-ton, corn, wheat and tobacco. One should bear in mind that the AAA, as interpreter by Secretary Secre-tary Wallace, was intended as a vehicle to reflect the changing needs of agriculture. W7hile, for an emergency period, the essential need was to meet the crisis caused caus-ed by accumulated surpluses of great crops, it was obvious from the start that as these surpluses disappeared, a new program would be required. Secretary Wallace stated this explicitly in some of his speeches during the past year. While the Court decision, overthrowing over-throwing the AAA, may force the quick maturity of plans that would otherwise have slowly developed, devel-oped, it is possible that more permanent per-manent agricultural policy will he evolved. Under the old program the farmer was paid not to produce pro-duce certain crops and this was denounced in many circles as a "policy of scarcity." The obvious answer from the farmer's standpoint, stand-point, is that only in reduced production pro-duction could there be hope of the disposal of the huge surpluses that had been piled up in the markets mar-kets of the world. The new plan, somewhat sketchy sket-chy as this is being written, sub-titutes sub-titutes a system of payments for the production of crops that preserve pre-serve and renew the fertility of the land. The farmer will still receive re-ceive money but it will be in the nature of a bonus for scientific farming rather than for the limitation limi-tation of a specific crop. Obviously Obvious-ly the result will be the same, regardless of the verbiage, because the farmer will not be able to produce the soil-building crops required re-quired without, of necessity limiting limit-ing the number of acres planted to wheat, cotton, corn or other cash crops which have, in the past, caused the depletion of the soil. According to figures of the Department De-partment of Agriculture, there were 360,000,000 acres of harvested harvest-ed crop land in 1929-30. Experts recommend the planting 355,000,-000 355,000,-000 acres today but they would reduce the acreages given to corn, wheat and cotton and increase the acreages given to hay, sorghum, soybeans and other crops which replenish the soil. Their view is that hog production should be reduced re-duced about ten per cent, that cattle cat-tle could be increased by about the same proportion, and. that mm production could move upwanj about twenty per cent. Whether such a policy couij successfully withstand attack iD view of the Supreme Court's AAA decision is a question. Justification would likely be under the genet, al welfare clause and it would Be asserted that the United States should pay a bounty to maintain agriculture as a national assej Basically, however, the same general gen-eral arguments would have to be used to support it that have been resorted to in the past to sustain the program destroyed by the Court's decision. |