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Show A Letter To Duchesne County Farmers On June 8, 1948 the Duchesne ACA committee, consist-wUfJoe consist-wUfJoe TWilcken, Hanna; Fred WJLI Mt Home, and Joe H inar Neola. turned their res-SSB. res-SSB. to to the state office. a short time afterwards a ACA committee was organ-and organ-and at this reorganization tiX Mr. Fretwell was cal-ff cal-ff n by State Chairman Hop-SJc Hop-SJc and given a story on what SJaCA was doing in the coun- and on the reorganization Of Si new committee. In this ar- e it was stated by Mr. Hop-!K Hop-!K that no reason had been fTen for the resignation of the 8tff rpkinslvas told by all Jee members of the committee they resigned and I am whL tn eive just a few of the reasons as I believe it is not uTfiir to the old committee, hut ako I believe the farmers of J&hesne county are entitled to Sr the year of 1947 Duchesne .. received as its share of gfsSteTcA funds, about $64,-SoO $64,-SoO and with this amount we had applications, after all seed payments were dropped, totaling total-ing $82,000. We were told by the state office of-fice to submit to the state applications ap-plications for payment just as fast as they were made up in our office. We knew that we would not have near enough money to make payments on more than 75 to 80 per cent of practices if we did this so we held applications applica-tions in our office until all were signed and ready for payment. Then we went over each application appli-cation carefully, and gave each one a proportionate cut. Had we followed state office instructions, farmers who were late in getting their practices completed would have received nothing. Here was our first cross up with the state office. After we had gone over every application and made the cuts we had used up all of the $64,-000. $64,-000. When we had submitted them to the state office for payment, pay-ment, the office began suspending suspend-ing them, sending them back to us advising that this or that could not be paid for. One of these practices was the clearing of land for tillage or pasture. We had submitted the application with this practice prac-tice with no cut in cleared acreage, acre-age, knowing that the payment would be only a small amount of the total cost. But nearly all of these applications which listed list-ed this practice were suspended. J We were told, not by the state committee, but by a member of the state office force that not more than 10 per cent of the actual crop or pasture acreage of any farm could be paid for un-i dcr this practice. In other words, if you had 20 acres of pasture ground you could not be paid for clearing more than 2 acres of brush. We considered this as one of the worthwhile practices in the county, and at the district meeting meet-ing in Vernal we tried to meet with the state committee to see if something could be worked out, but we were told that they would not meet with us. However, How-ever, I believe that had Chairman Chair-man Vern Hopkins been there a meeting could have been arranged. ar-ranged. Other applications were suspended sus-pended and cuts were made after af-ter we resigned and I believe that through these suspensions the farmers of Duchesne county lost $2000. I believe also that the money went to some other county in the state and perhaps was paid out for raising seed, which was cut from the Duchesne Du-chesne county practices. I could see immediately after we had resigned that we were letting the farmers down and that we should have stayed and foueht it out. I feel that when a county elects a committee to administer the farmers' program that the committee com-mittee should administer it and not a few office employes, some of whom have never done one day's work on a farm. I believe that Fred and Joe will bear me out when I say that if the state wants to kill the program all they need do is to let a few more of the office force loose in the counties. I am not having1 this published because I want to go back into office again, but to let the farmers farm-ers know a few of the reasons why your old committee quit. I also want to tell you that in 1947 more conservation was accomplished ac-complished per dollar than during dur-ing any previous year, and that your old committee gave you the best it had, but failed you when it resigned. We are thoroughly converted to soil and water conservation and I can see in the 10 years I have worked in the ACA that much has been accomplished on the range and farms. It appears to mc that most of the bugs have been ironed out of the program and unless there is too much "Washington farming" a great deal will be accomplished in the conserving of our soil and water from here on out. Joe Wilcken Hanna |