White & Red

As decreed by the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (TIME, Feb. 21), and detailed by practical Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace in 22,560 mimeographed words of crop regulations, the 2,500,000 cotton growers in the U. S. can sell their yield without penalty in the open market this fall only if they have numbered identification cards which have been duly issued and signed by AAA county committeemen.

Mr. Wallace, of course, was not so crass as to tell American farmers that they must take a number, must carry a card. Any farmer who wants to do so may grow all the cotton he pleases, store it in his barn, light a cigar with his AAA pasteboard and go unpunished. Mr. Wallace simply told cotton buyers, who are not a big or politically potent class, that upon them rests the burden of properly identifying the cotton. Furthermore, buyers, on pain of $500 fine, must strictly observe an AAA color line.

For AAA cards are to be white and red--white for the 90-odd percent of farmers who presumably are complying with AAA's acreage control program; red for approximately 250,000 noncomplying individualists.

Vast are the differences on each side of the color line. White-card holders, in addition to selling their cotton without undue complication, will receive a Government bounty of 2.4-c- a pound. But buyers of red-card cotton must note whether the farmer is selling cotton grown on acreage beyond an allotted quota. If so, the buyer must collect a 2-cent penalty tax on each pound bought.

Reason for the 1938 program and its attendant complexities was that cotton farmers last year cultivated 34,471,000 acres, grew the huge total of 18,945,022 bales, had to fall back on Government loans, wound up with a carry-over sufficient to depress this year's prices. So Mr. Wallace invoked the powers-granted him in the new AAA, instituted drastic control, got a majority of farmers to approve by referendum. Last week Mr. Wallace's analysts announced the result: a cultivated acreage of 26,904,000, lower than any since the Department of Agriculture began to keep tabs in 1909, and a prospective crop of about 12,000,000 bales (unofficially indicated, because Federal law prohibits official bale forecasts before August 8).

Less pleasing news about wheat was carried to the White House. The Secretary informed the President that so big a wheat crop is coming up that the U. S. Treasury must lend growers perhaps as much as $100,000,000 to carry over their surplus. The Adjustment Act requires loans to farmers whenever prospective production rises above "normal" domestic and foreign demand (751,000,000 bushels).

Official estimate announced this week: 967,412,000 bushels for the year--216,412,000 above normal.

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