struction. Between $2,500 and $5,000, the existing language provides that any construction is to be within an estimate submitted and approved by the Appropriations Committee. Mr. LONG. Would that limitation apply to an individual structure or to a group of structures? Mr. ROBERTS. It provides that the cost of constructing any one building, except headhouses connecting greenhouses, must be so handled. Mr. WHITTEN. You might give attention to that and advise us before we finish the hearings. It strikes me that by the use of force account and other things perhaps you might stay under that figure. At any rate, if you will advise us, Mr. Roberts, before we finish we will be able to act a little better in case some action on the part of the committee is necessary. Dr. Salter, we have not asked you in detail about a lot of your activities. This committee has gone into these matters periodically, and the indications are that you expect to go along with about the same force, and expect to give attention to such projects as may be found to be essential by the military. However, at various times we have had questions raised as to the relationship between your own agency on soils work and that of the Soil Conservation Service. Have you made any special effort to see that there is no duplication of effort? COORDINATION OF DEPARTMENT'S SOIL RESEARCH PROGRAMS Dr. SALTER. Yes, Mr. Whitten. We have been working very closely with the Soil Conservation Service, trying to dovetail our programs together, so that there is not undesirable duplication. We also try to integrate our force, so that where they are doing work we can supply certain complements which they do not have, and they can do the same for us. Mr. WHITTEN. It has been pointed out that in no case are you duplicating work geographically, since in one station you might be doing what they were doing in another station. Is that the answer to this charge? Dr. SALTER. That is pretty largely it. Dr. Parker, of course, has charge of our soils work, and he and Dr. Nichols have lined their projects up and tried to see where they could fit them together best. I think they have made progress. I think there are some limitations, especially where neither one of us is able to provide the additional men that would be necessary to round out the job. But that is a recognizedly difficult matter at this time. PROGRESS ON FARM HOUSING PLANS Mr. WHITTEN. You feel that you have made splendid progress, Mr. Long, in connection with the housing program, do you? Mr. LONG. We have been doing very well, Mr. Chairman. The commitments for Farmers Home Administration are perhaps twothirds completed. These include the new designs they requested us to do and the plans they gave us to revise. We have assembled the lists Mr. Horan mentioned. We have published the little catalog sheets, and so forth. 79808-51-pt. 1——27 Mr. WHITTEN. Last year everybody except custodial employees tried to get in on this program, and each Bureau requested additional funds for the purpose. The committee did not see fit to let them get in on it. Have you folks been able to get along pretty well without all this additional help? Mr. LONG. That is rather difficult for me to answer, Mr. Chairman. We have made progress toward our agricultural engineering objectives; there are other objectives which should be considered. We are doing some service work now on construction material surveys for normal farm housing and building requirements fundamental to a possible materials allocation program for the Materials and Facilities Branch, PMA, and some studies which BAE have asked us to make, which will implement their phase of this housing job. In addition to answering Mr. Horan's questions on our farm. housing research progress, Mr. Whitten, I would like to state that we have prepared a statement covering much of our agricultural engineering research activities. With your permission, we would appreciate having this inserted in the record. Mr. WHITTEN. That is agreeable, Mr. Long. (The statement is as follows:) GENERAL STATEMENT The dictionary defines engineering as "the science and art of constructing and using machinery, or of designing and constructing buildings; skillful management." Agricultural engineering, obviously, is engineering applied to the different phases of the agricultural industry. The objective of agricultural engineering research is not, necessarily, to produce more per acre (although that can be done) but to produce more per worker, thus reducing the production and processing costs; to recover and preserve what is produced; and, in cooperation with other scientists, to find new packages and develop new marketable products. Agricultural engineering is an important factor in the productive operations of every farm in the United States. In its various aspects and services it contributes also to the comfort and attractiveness of farm living. The ramifications of agricultural engineering research and the opportunities in its development are so great, that one of the most difficult features in administering the agricultural engineering research program is that of selecting the relatively few projects of greatest importance and timeliness in keeping with a productive, balanced program, commensurate with our personnel and with our physical and financial resources. Most of our current projects have a direct or indirect relationship to a national defense program or can be realined to provide personnel and facilities to serve emergency needs. First, I should like to give a brief résumé of the economic return from a few of our project accomplishments in recent years. Naturally, I have selected some of our more noteworthy projects for this discussion. It is inherent in research that some ideas and projects develop satisfactorily and that others are less productive. I shall mention some of the latter further on in this report. 1. During the fiscal year 1950, the Commodity Credit Corporation purchased grain storage bins, buildings and equipment to the extent of more than $100,000,000. Subsequently, some 400,000,000 bushels of shelled corn from the 1948 harvest was acquired in the price-support program and placed in this storage. Agricultural engineers reviewed the engineering features in the selection and acquisition of the storage units and equipment, and worked with the bidders to make improvements in their designs. Out of a total of 500 bids the engineers selected approximately 80 as functionally and structurally acceptable for purchase by the Commodity Credit Corporation. Although time did not permit as thorough supervision in either the office or the field as desirable, the work performed by the engineers helped materially to improve the quality of the grain storages acquired. 2. The farm housing loan program conducted by the Farmers Home Administration is another action program in which the research agricultural engineers performed important service. Plans and specifications are required for any construction loan program in order to insure that the money loaned on any individual project is used for the specific purpose for which it was granted. They are necessary, also, to insure that the Federal loan program is directed toward its primary objective that of securing more suitable, comfortable, and attractive homes for farm families within their economic means. The modest farmhouse research project that has been underway for some years has proved its economic worth to the Government. For fiscal year 1951 the combined plan service and complementary research in farm housing is costing 0.4 percent of the amount of the loan program. If commercial architects had been employed on each individual house plan at the customary 5-percent fee, the additional cost would have been $1,242,000. 3. The USDA Cotton Ginning Laboratory at Stoneville, Miss., is the recognized research headquarters for the cotton-ginning industry. For more than 30 years. it has been serving growers and ginners by developing improved ginning processes. The leadership of the laboratory is based on its numerous contributions to the cotton industry; for example, over 5,000 of the 9,000 gins in operation condition the seed cotton with driers constructed on the laboratory specifications. These gins processed more than 10,000,000 bales in 1949 and increased the value of cotton on an average of $2 per bale-an additional return of $20,000,000 to the cotton growers. As the older gins are modernized or rebuilt, the benefits due to better preparation will increase proportionately. 4. Some 1,500 USDA-type lint-flue cleaners have been installed in commercial gins. These have increased the grade of ginned cotton on the average of onethird grade or possibly $5 per bale. This device, based on the laboratory's research, has already added $5,000,000 to the cotton-growers' income. When the lint-flue cleaner comes into general use in the remaining 7,500 gins the increased income to cotton growers will total $30,000,000 based on the 1949 crop. Aside from these two engineering developments, the laboratory has been granted 23 public-service patents and others are pending. 5. The application of electric energy to agriculture is in its infancy, yet several outstanding research findings are available to the 41⁄2 million farms now having high-line service. A simple, inexpensive type of electric heater is the most practical method of supplying heat in the farrowing pens of young pigs. Death losses of early spring pigs have been reduced 17.4 percent by the use of such equipment, which has been adopted more or less generally by farmers in the Midwest. If used by all hog raisers, Corn Belt farmers alone would have 10,910,500 more hogs or could have reduced the number of farrowing sows by 11⁄2 million. In addition, such protection devices enable farmers to move the farrowing date into late winter and benefit from the August market price. 6. Improved bright-leaf tobacco-curing methods and equipment are reducing costs for curing tobacco by 50 percent. Development of improved curing equipment and electrical controls combined with safety regulations is also responsible in part for 66 percent reduction in losses of tobacco-curing barns by fire between 1946 and 1949. This reduction in fire losses alone exceeds $2,000,000 annually." The potential saving in fuel cost is estimated at $10,000,000 each year, while the quality of tobacco is increased materially. 7. Tractor tire tests under way at the tillage machinery laboratory, Auburn, Ala., indicate that a saving of 10 percent in fuel costs in tractor operation can be made by farmers who use properly designed farm tractor tires. The 3,825,000 tractors now on the farms in the United States use about 4,000,000,000 gallons of liquid fuel per year, at a cost of over $400,000,000 per year. If the improved design of tractor tires were generally used, with a fuel saving of 10 percent this would reduce farmers' tractor operating costs $40,000,000 per year. 8. Seeding rates for sugar beets have been reduced from 20 pounds per acre to less than 4 pounds and hand labor for thinning has been reduced one-fourth to one-third through cooperative research. For the acreage harvested in 1949, there would be a potential saving of about 1,000,000 pounds of seed, or a quarter million dollars for seed alone. To this may be added the significant saving in labor, amounting to about $7,000,000 making a total reduction of $7,250,000 in the farmers' production costs for the 1949 crop. Research engineers are specialized, technical personnel. Within limits, it is possible to shift individuals from one project to another. More frequently, when one problem is solved it is desirable to give these men who have developed compespecialized research field responsibility for another phase of the same project, thus capitalizing on their experience to the greatest extent and enabling them to render the most effective, efficient service. tence in a Research projects are sometimes completed and closed. At other times, the research continues to develop economic results as the emphasis changes from one objective to another. Research is a continuing program, like any other service program. It requires administrative judgment to determine when the results of any one project have passed the peak of their economic return. In spite of the fact that financial support of the revitalized agricultural engineering research program during the past six years has not permitted many opportunities for shifting of emphasis, there have been significant moves of this nature, as illustrated by the following examples: 1. The primary reason for the high incidence of undulant fever among farm families has been the use of raw milk. Two years of work by an engineer in our Division of Farm Electrification in cooperation with the Connecticut Experiment Station resulted in the design of a domestic pasteurizer that operates on a simplified pasteurization schedule. This equipment is now in commercial production. The personnel and funds formerly assigned to this project are now directed to a serious poultry house ventilation problem and to tobacco conditioning in the Connecticut Valley. 2. One engineer employed on the farm grain storage program in the Midwest has been reassigned during the current fiscal year to study the critical problem of grain sorghum storage in the humid costal area of Texas. 3. One engineer who has been working on potato-storage problems in Colorado for the past 6 or 7 years has been given new assignments on the same problems in Minnesota and North Dakota. 4. One engineer was transferred from grain storage to onion storage. 5. One engineer who has been working on pesticide application equipment research at the Toledo, Ohio, laboratory was loaned the first of the year to work with the aeronautical engineers in designing the dispensing equipment to be built into the experimental airplane being constructed as the first phase of the cooperative agricultural aviation project located at the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College. 6. A project conducted by the Division of Farm Electrification on the use of bactericidal lamps in poultry houses for disease control resulted in inconclusive data in two seasons work, but did result in increased egg production in the irradiated pens. The project has been rewritten and the objective changed to determine the fundamental reasons for the production increase. These few illustrations will show the continual change in research programs that are not always apparent in general statements-the shifting of research personnel or funds to meet emergency needs, to service action programs, or to initiate new activities that promise to be more productive than those that have been under way. A survey of our program shows that 14 percent of our technical personnel have been reassigned to essentially new projects during the past and current fiscal year. The goals of agricultural engineering research are: Development and improvement of field machinery to produce with fewer man-hours per bushel and with due regard to soil and water conservation; harvesting machinery to recover the highest possible part of the crop produced; structures to reduce chore labor, conserve field-fresh quality of agricultural products, and to prevent waste; effective use of electric energy about the farm and in the home; transportation to deliver farm products to the markets without waste and in as nearly the condition they are when they leave the farm; and processing to make the farmer more than just the supplier of raw material. The program does not deplete our agricultural resources or develop surpluses. It places more nutritious food on the dining table of people everywhere. And it gives the individual farmer greater control over his costs of production, tends to enable him to control the quality of his commodities, and to produce profitably at lower market prices. * * * Finally, in the words of Harold A. Young, president of the National Cotton Council, The farming mechanization program offers an opportunity to take some of the drudgery out of farming. It offers an opportunity of increasing tremendously the productivity and earning capacity of the individual worker. A thriving agriculture is essential to our civilization. And agriculture will continue to thrive only so long as we can keep on the farms a substantial part of our most capable rural youth." Mr. WHITTEN. What plans do you have at the Brawley station? I notice you are now setting up funds for its operation. OPERATION OF BRAWLEY FIELD STATION Dr. SALTER. Dr. Parker, would you mind discussing that? Dr. PARKER. The Brawley, Calif., station, to just review it briefly will probably have construction of buildings and facilities finished about the 1st of June. It will represent a total investment of about $350,000, which includes the land that was transferred to the Department by the Imperial Valley Farmers Association. The station was first authorized in fiscal year 1949, and since that time we have increased the amount of money being expended there from $22,000 to nearly $50,000 for carrying the program. In addition to that, we have put in some money for equipment, which was on a nonrecurring basis. Under the requested increase of $85,000, we would expect to devote a substantial part of it to field crops, giving emphasis to sugar and to some cereal crops. Fruit and vegetables would receive approximately one-third of it with emphasis upon the truck crops of the area and some on citrus and dates. About $25,000 of the $85,000 would be used for soil management and irrigation studies on fertilizer use and water use. I might say that we have had our first planning conference with the Brawley Farmers Association last fall and spent a good full half day with them discussing plans as to what should be done. Reports of that conference were sent to experiment station directors of the States that will be interested in the operations of the Brawley station; namely, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California. The California Experiment Station and the Soil Conservation Service participated in the conference, but the other States did not. Mr. WHITTEN. Are there any further questions? If not, gentlemen, we thank you very much. I think you are doing a mighty good job. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1951. FOREST SERVICE WITNESSES LYLE F. WATTS, CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE EARL W. LOVERIDGE, ASSISTANT CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE E. I. KOTOK, ASSISTANT CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE R. E. MCARDLE, ASSISTANT CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE HOWARD HOPKINS, ASSISTANT CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE HENRY WOLD, BUREAU BUDGET OFFICER RALPH S. ROBERTS, DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND BUDGET OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Watts, we are glad to have you and your staff with us this morning. We will insert, at this point in the record, pages 333 through 335. We will be happy to have your general statement. (The pages of the justifications are as follows:) PURPOSE STATEMENT The Forest Service is charged with responsibility for promoting the conservation and wise use of the country's forest and related watershed lands, which com |