AGRICULTURAL RELIEF general relief of the farmers that I believe will be of very great in- terest to everybody. I am sure it is different from anything that has ever been considered. I have been studying it for about four years, and I have never found anybody that did not approve it, and I would like to tell it to you, if you will allow me, and then if you haven't sufficient time now, I can come back any other time for examination. The CuairMAN. The committee has made a special order. The question is what we want to do. Shall we make special orders and consistently follow them, or shall we have no respect for what we plan to do? Mr. Wyant. I understand that vou have a plan for handling agricultural products locally in the District of Columbia. What is the pleasure of the committee? I understood you, Mr. Booth, to make a request to be permitted to file a statement with the com- mittee. (Thereupon informal discussion took place.) STATEMENT OF EDWARD H. BOOTH, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. Boots. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I have come here to present a plan to you that I believe will be of real nelp to the farmer. I believe it will not only be of help to the farmer, but it will be of help to every householder in a given community, and, thirdly, I believe that it will not cost the Government either of a State or the United States 1 cent to carry it on, after its first initiation and putting it in operation. My plan is this: I assume, first, that the farming industry is beyond the control of any one country, even, much less within the control of any one State. It is a world-wide proposition, and it is something that I think must be dealt with from that standpoint. Mr. AsweLL. Are you a farmer? Mr. Boots. I am. I have been a farmer for 40 years. I take it that before I get through you will want to know my stand on the McNary-Haugen bill. I think I can possibly answer anything that you could ask me in this way: That I take it that anything that is wrong in principle can never be right in practice. Now, I believe that all the farming legislation—and I have been watching 1t for 40 years— I have never found any of it that amounted to anything to me. personally. I have never been able to get one cent out of it that I could see. It is possible that I may have had some advantages I did not know of. But the principle of the thing, I think, is wrong. The whole trouble with the farming interests to-day all over the world, not the United States alone, is that it is up against the question of supply and demand; and that is a king and queen that every farmer must bow to. He sails the seas in that line without either rudder or pro- pellor, and is subject to every whim of supply and demand that chooses to blow against him. I think that is the situation, undoubtedly. You have all expressed yourselves practically that way. I think the principle of supply and demand, while it is inevitable to a certain extent on any commodity, is something or other that must be dealt with from the powers that are