AGRICULTURAL RELIEF
House oF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
Thursday, January 26, 1927.

The committee met at 12 o’clock a. m. Hon. Gilbert N. Haugen
(chairman) presiding.

The CaairMAN. We will now turn our attention to general farm
relief, and Mr. Hall has something to say.

Mr. Hall. We have with us this morning a gentleman from North
Dakota who wants to talk about the farm proposition in a general
way. I might say in North Dakota we had one of our good citizens,
Ed Pierce, a banker and a farmer, who has been out there 40 years or
more, and he had given the farm question a great deal of study.
That was largely his business. He had prepared a statement to be
ziven to the committee here, but while on the way to Florida with his
wife death overtook him and he died in a Pullman car one night
between Chicago and Florida. But Mr. Maher fortunately was
working with Mr. Pierce, the man I spoke of, on a farm plan, and Mr.
Maher wants to talk to the committee a few minutes this morning on
that subject. I introduce Mr. Maher, of North Dakota. I might
say to you men who are interested in dairy work that Mr. Maher
owns one of the most modern and, I think, perhaps one of the best
types of dairy barns in the world, and so finely constructed is it that
at 40° below zero you can not find frost on the windows or wet spots
on the ceiling of his barn anywhere. I commend him to vour cour-
teous consideration.

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STATEMENT OF JOHN W. MAHER, DEVILS LAKE. N. DAK.
The CaairmaN. Please give your full name for the record.

Mr. “aHER. Ly name 1s John W. Maher; address, Devils Lake,
N. Dak.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I was born and
raised on a farm in northern Illinois. My father was a pioneer there,
and I saw Illinois settled in my younger days.

Mr. Apkins. You got started right, anyway?

Mr. Mauer. Yes. I was born in the year 1854, and I have been
sticking around since and have gathered some information.

Last spring I got in touch with Mr. Ed Pierce, of Sheldon, N. Dak.
He had this outline of a farm plan, and he showed it to me and asked
my opmion of it, and I was impressed with it more than any other
plan I had ever seen or read, on account of its simplicity, on account
of the fact that I think it will settle the farm problem forever if it
is adopted and put into operation, and it will not be a recurring matter
that will come up year after year or every few years with the farmers
coming in for assistance. I approved and offered to do what I could
to help him get it circulated.

Mr. Pierce at that time was unwell, and he asked me to do what
[ could for him and I did. I could not do very much, but I did what
little I could do. He was on his way south, with the intention of
coming here and presenting the matter himself and, of course, he
could do it very much better than I could, because he had made a
study of it for many years.

I will say in reference to him that he started the agitation that
resulted in the establishment of the farm land bank. He spent