AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
381 
he can clear and put into cultivation. I happen to be in that posi- 
tion myself. The effect of those lower prices in the case of my land 
in the Mississippi Delta of Arkansas is to cause me to want to cut 
the trees down and get that land into cultivation so as to help carry 
its own charges. So where you have high taxes running upon land 
that is a factor in the case. 
Mr. KincHELOE. If you had a higher price to help you pay those 
:axes, you might, want to cut the taxes and plant more, too. 
Mr. Stewart. I might not be in such a hurry if I were getting 
more rent from my land already cleared. 
Mr. Fort. What is your notion as to the effect of this debenture 
plan upon production? We will take wheat, getting the 5-year 
average of something like 800,000,000 bushels. That is certainly an 
ample margin of safety over our domestic requirements, is it not? 
Mr. Stewart. It is about 24 per cent. 
Mr. Fort. Do you think we need it all as a margin of safety? 
Mr. Stewart. It is about 24 per cent. 
Mr. Fort. Do you think we need it all as a margin of safety? 
Mr. Stewart. Perhaps not. Our population is increasing at the 
rate of 115 per cent a year. I think we ought not to be in any 
deathly run to get ourselves to a see-saw condition where we can not 
tell from year to year whether we are to depend on Canadian wheat 
or United States wheat. I think, on the whole, that the consumers of 
the United States have to be thankful for the fact that we have a 
persistent and large exportable surplus. 
Mr. Fort. I am not questioning that. but I am asking you, does it 
need to be any larger? 
Mr. Stewart. I do not think it needs to be any larger, but I do 
aot think it needs to be apologized for. 
Mr. Fort. If it does not need to be any larger, do you feel that this 
plan would or would not tend to increase it? 
Mr. Stewart. I think that it would tend to cause some increase, but 
[ do not expect it to be as much of an increase as some do. I am 
inclined to think that there will be less disturbance in that respect 
than might be expected. 
Mr. Forr. Now, you have said nothing, Doctor, about whether this 
bill would work equally—I assume it would under its language—on 
all grades of commodities. What is your view about the wisdom of 
that? 
Mr. Stewart. My view on that would be this, that our tariff duties 
as now specified are lagging behind the opportunities afforded by the 
expert services which we are developing through the Federal grain 
supervision. Even at the time of the passage of the tariff act 
of 1922 it should have been possible to distinguish between No. 1 
Dark Northern and other premium tvpes of wheat as compared 
with lower grades of wheat. That could have been done. But in 
the tariff as it was drawn provision was made for a flat rate per 
bushel, thought to be high enough to keep out that particular type 
of export wheat upon which we are on the import basis, and with 
respect to which I might add that in my opinion the tariff has nor- 
mally been considerably effective. But that is not the bulk of the 
wheat of the United States. The bulk of the wheat, which is upon 
al export basis, in my opinion would not require 42 cents a bushel 
In the wav of an import duty.