378 
AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
Mr. AsweLL. Say 8,000,000 bales. Would you include the weight 
of the bales in the debenture, if only three bales? 
Mr. Stewart. That is a new problem. I would be glad to study 
it. I have not any answer offhand to give you on that. 
Mr. Aswern. All right. | 
Mr. Stewart. With respect to the matter Mr. Ketcham has men- 
tioned, that of preventing over-stimulation of production of deben- 
turable quantities, I may say that here again is a place where 1t would 
be difficult to be dogmatic. I am going to give you my personal plat- 
form on this. I think that there are some commodities with respect 
to which any fears that you have with respect to 10 cents or 20 
cents having any effect on increasing acreage are rather beside the 
point. Take the case of corn, for example. The acreage 1n corn dur- 
ing the 5-year period from 1921 to 1926, stood at 100,000,000 or 
101,000,000, a year-to-year variation at its widest mark of only 1.4 
per cent. 
Mr. KincreLoe. What is that production; corn? 
Mr. Stewart. That is the acreage given by the Department of 
Agriculture on corn; that is not production. The production varied 
more widely. The thing I am trying to emphasize is that there are 
some products in our American export agriculture, the acreage of 
which is pretty firmly fixed—so firmly fixed that a 10 or 20-cent 
bounty would not be likely to disturb it. That is not so true of 
wheat. 
Mr, Kixcueror. Still, corn, don’t you think, had a whole lot to do 
with that cost of wheat? 
Mr. Stewart. In the case of corn you have practical stability of 
acreage. 
Mr, Kixcugroe. I come from a corn country, and there are hun- 
dreds of acres of fertile land in that country capable of growing corn 
in which there has never been a plow stuck for that purpose. 
Mr. Stewart. Very true. But what I am trying to say is that the 
variations in price which have been experienced in respect of corn in 
the past few years have resulted in variations in acreage much smaller 
than the ordinary eastern imagination pictures. : 
Mr. Hore. What have those variations been in price during that 
period ¢ 
Mr. Stewart. Those figures could be placed in the record from 
the Department of Agriculture year book. 
— Hore. I wondered, practically, whether they were great or 
all. 
Mr. Stewart. They are there for vou to look at [handing the book 
to Mr. Hope]. 
Mr. Hope. There have been considerable fluctuations? 
hy Soni There have been in price but not in acres. 
~ Mr. Hope. Which ought to affect the acreage if it was possible to 
increase acreage. 
hou: BINCHELOE. But you have to carry in mind that the price of 
og le has a whole lot to do with the fluctuation of the 
price of corn, too. 
i BRT Very true. In the case of wheat we had between 
i) 9 a jump in acreage from 59,000,000 to 76,000,000 in one 
year, not easily traceable to difference in price, because the price dif- 
erence was not marked: but the acreace difference did divulege——