would not be in excess of 50 percent of what it is on the Big Horn Valley, where we have ample water. Mr. O'CONNOR. Let me put it this way: What percentage are your crops cut because you do not have sufficient water? Mr. BUNSTON. They are cut from an average of 25 percent to total loss. Mr. RICH. I want to try to clear this up a little bit since I have talked with Mr. O'Neal. I don't want to get you on the record wrong. I don't want to put you in a wrong position. When I asked you about raising wheat on this dry land, I was talking about this particular project, the Little Big Horn. I am talking about that particular project where you want to spend this $500,000. I am referring to that area in which you want to spend this money to build this dam. You call that all dry land; do you not? Mr. BUNSTON. Oh, no. Mr. RICH. That is what I want to get straightened out, because, since I have been talking with Mr. O'Neal, I have found out that you do not grow all of this wheat on dry land. I thought this was all dry land, and that you were only raising the wheat on the dry land. I think that the record ought to be corrected there. Mr. BUNSTON. Yes. I want to state there in connection with that that practically all of this land that we are talking about, this 30,000 acres of land in these two valleys, is known as irrigated land. It is practically all susceptible of irrigation at least once during the early spring. There is plenty of water up until about the 1st of June for this whole project. Then the water starts dropping; and by the time that the middle of June comes, there is not enough water for 8,000 of the 30,000; and the Government engineer's statement is to the effect that of that 8,000 acres there is a loss of 40 or more percent on account of the shortage of water. Mr. O'NEAL. Getting back to this question of sugar beets again: How did those people happen to locate there? What is the capacity of that beet plant, and do they anticipate a large production of beets in that valley? Mr. BUNSTON. This particular its beets to the Hardin factory. Mr. O'NEAL. Where are those beets grown that are processed at the Hardin factory? valley does not anticipate sending They go to Wyoming. Mr. BUNSTON. The ones that are processed at the Hardin factor will be produced in the Big Horn Valley. Mr. O'NEAL. And not in the valley that we are speaking of now? Mr. BUNSTON. No. Mr. O'NEAL. But you say that this Indian agent is going out among the Indians in the Little Big Horn Valley trying to encourage them to grow beets? Mr. BUNSTON. Yes. It is the same company that has both fac tories. Mr. O'NEAL. And they expect, of course, to increase the production very considerably among the Indians? Mr. BUNSTON. I presume that there will be anormal increase there if the water facilities are provided. But at the present time if the water facilities are not provided, there will not be any. Mr. O'NEAL. Let me ask this for my own information: Do the Indians ever lease or rent their lands to others for production and merely live by the rental, or is it all an individual farming proposition with these Indians? Mr. BUNSTON. No, some of these lands are leased by the Indians to white people. Mr. RICH. You have opened up a new subject there and one that I am vitally interested in, and that is the sugar-beet industry. Can you make a profit by raising your sugar beets in Montana? Mr. BUNSTON. We have. It is the best thing that we have had. I will put it that way. Mr. RICH. It has been the best crop that you have had? Mr. BUNSTON. It has been the best crop that we have had. Mr. RICH. If you were given permission to increase your sugarbeet quota, it would be the best thing to help the farmers in Montana, wouldn't it? Mr. BUNSTON. Oh, yes, indeed. Mr. RICH. You are really giving us a lot of light about Montana that will vitally affect the welfare of this country, because we have been prohibiting the farmers from raising a product which would have been the best crop, according to your statement, for the State of Montana. Isn't that so? Mr. BUNSTON. Yes; let me just say this: I want to show you the record of the Shoshone project, which is a project that is just above us in Wyoming. Here is the record of the production of a properly irrigated valley. You will see what beets are produced there. Mr. RICH. This table shows the production of sugar beets in the Shoshone Valley from 1925 to 1936. Mr. Chairman, may I have the permission to insert that in the record here? 1 1936 beet figures include estimated bonus; former years include actual bonus. Mr. RICH. I don't want to take up a lot of time on this, but I am very much interested in it, if that is really the best crop. I am interested in the American farmer. I want to see the markets of this country handled for the benefit of the American farmer. I think the committee should give every consideration to that project. Mr. BUNSTON. I would just like to make one further statement, if I may have permission. The sugar beet is not only our best cash crop and our surest onewe depend on the sugar beet to pay our taxes and to pay our expenses of operation and our whole farm cost. It is sure money every fall. We not only get an average of $76.28, such as they do in the Shoshone Valley, which is a very comparable valley to ours, during the last 11 years; but we have the byproducts. In an agriculture like ours, stockraising and farming, those byproducts are worth a great deal to us. The tops that we get per acre are worth more than a ton of hay per acre. Mr. RICH. Would you rather devote your land to that purpose rather than to the raising of wheat or the raising of other commodities? Mr. BUNSTON. Yes. Mr. RICH. Then you had better go to the Department of Agriculture and tell them to raise your quota on sugar beets so that you can be raising a good crop, because the Department of the Interior is trying to advance commodities that are essentially to the welfare of the American farmer and the American laborer; but the Department of Agriculture is trying to hold the farmer down and give this to Cuba and some of these other countries. Mr. BUNSTON. We have been before the sugar section, last summer, for that very purpose. Mr. RICH. I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, that if these people in Wyoming and Montana want to do something for their farmers, we ought to help them. Mr. O'CONNOR. I would like to have the right to have Mr. Greever make a statement to the committee in support of this proposition. Mr. SCRUGHAM. We will be glad to hear him. Mr. GREEVER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I just want to say this: This Lodge Grass Creek, which is the main tributary of Little Horn River, heads right at the north of the Wyoming line, just over into Montana. Part of the water comes out of the Big Horn Mountains in the State of Wyoming. In order to get the proper picture of this, I think you almost need. to see the geography of that country along the Big Horn Mountains. The Big Horn Mountains run generally in a north and south direction from up in Montana clear down to the central part of Wyoming. Out of those mountains come various creeks that have produced water for our agricultural products in connection with our cattle and sheep raising, which is the big industry. In recent years the sugar-beet industry has become quite an industry. in the western country. There is a sugar-beet factory at Sheridan, which is just about 40 miles below the Montana line in Wyoming. That sugar-beet factory has been a prosperous addition to the Sheridan community, which today is very productive. It is a very substantial and prosperous community. But recently, on account of the lack of storage water and on account of the condition that has been described here by Mr. Gwinn and Mr. Bunston, they have been short of sugar beets, and there has been a fear of further shortage of sugar beets. And, of course, they cannot run a factory profitably unless they have a sufficient supply of sugar beets. Now, the condition along the Little Horn is one with which I am very familiar. It is one of the richest valleys that there is in the United States today. It was the one, as Mr. Bunston said, that caused the Custer massacre, because the Crows and the other Indians were desirous of retaining that for themselves, and for the reason that it has always been wonderful land, and it is one of the most beautiful valleys and one of the most fertile valleys. You have a situation there along that river where there are 30,000 acres all laid out to be irrigated. The ditches are there. The laterals are there. The headgates are there, and everything. But they simply have only water enough for 8,000 acres. And I want to say, and I know that the gentleman from Pennsyl vania will be interested in this-that in the West today, if it were not for irrigation and I know the chairman of this committee will bear me out if it had not been for irrigation in the West, we would have had the greatest relief problem in the West per county of any section of the entire United States. The reason for that is this: We depend upon stockraising. We have had in 1934 and again in 1936 the most disastrous droughts that we ever had. I wouldn't believe it myself if I had not seen it with my own eyes. You will just have to take my word for this. I have seen land that used to be the most fertile pasture land just as bare as this table. And what the drought had not done the grasshoppers completed last year. The grasshoppers even went so far as to girdle the fence posts in that country, if you can believe that. They ate the needles off the pine trees. That is how hungry they were and how many there were of them. What happened here on these irrigated sections that had sufficient water? They were raising enough forage crops so that the farmers over there could take these drought cattle and bring them in and feed them on these irrigated acres. A man who had sufficient forage could bring those cattle in on those irrigated areas and take care of them. That saved thousands of their cattle, and it saved thousands of their sheep, that otherwise would have been a total economic loss. Now, this is a valley the rejuvenation of which just means a tremendous lot, and for this reason: We spend a good deal of money to rehabilitate the farmers and to rehabilitate the ranchers, and take care of them, to take them away and put them somewhere else. It has been no doubt necessary to do that in these irrigated areas of the country. But right here you have a condition where the houses are already built. You have the barns. You have the fences. You have the corrals and everything that you need there. Mr. SCRUGHAM. The canals and ditches are already built? Mr. GREEVER. Over the entire 30,000 acres. It means that you are not bringing in any competitive crops except sugar beets. And I think, just as this gentleman here indicated, that we should have just as many sugar beets raised in this section as we possibly can. I think that the perfectly sound and right way to rehabilitate a man today, where you can do it, is to rehabilitate him right on his own place. And here you can rehabilitate 1,200 Indians and 600 white families right here on their own places. I am not financially interested in Montana at all, but I am extremely interested in this problem. I know what that problem is. At this time there is no better way to rehabilitate 600 white families and 1,200 Indians than there is right there on the Lodge Grass and Little Horn Rivers. I may say this: That from the nature of that land there I know positively that when they get adequate water on there, every cent of this $500,000 which it will cost will be paid right back to the United States Treasury. Mr. SCRUGHAM. Thank you, Mr. Greever. You have made a very able and very interesting presentation to the committee. Mr. O'CONNOR. May we have the right to offer additional proof next week when we get the individuals here? I think they will be here about Tuesday. Mr. SCRUGHAM. Yes. FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 1937. APPROPRIATION FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION Mr. JOHNSON. The committee will be in order. Judge Tarver, who is a member of the appropriations committee, has a subcommittee meeting this morning, and asks for 5 minutes' time now. Mr. Fuller will have charge of the presentation of wit-nesses. May I ask members of the committee to permit members to make statements without interruptions in an effort to save time. Mr. FULLER. I will say, Mr. Chairman that there will probably be representatives from 30 States here who will desire to be heard. I will try to expedite the hearing by introducing them in order. As far as we can carry out the program, we will call on only one or two representatives from a State. We will be glad to cooperate with the committee in every way possible to expedite the hearing. Mr. JOHNSON. We will now hear Judge Tarver. STATEMENT OF HON. MALCOLM C. TARVER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA Mr. TARVER. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the courtesy of my colleagues on the committee, and of those in charge of the presentation of this matter, in permitting me to be heard first at this time on account of the emergency reason that the chairman has mentioned. The friends of vocational agricultural and industrial training and of the teaching of home economics in the public schools of the Nation have been very painfully disappointed by the action of the Budget in sending over for the approval of Congress this estimate in only the same amount that is available for the present fiscal year for carrying on this character of work throughout the country. It is unnecessary for me to go into the details concerning the matter, because Congress only last year reviewed the entire subject, particu larly with a view of increasing the amount of funds available for this purpose so as adequately to supply the needs of the country. It appeared from statements submitted by educational authorities, particularly the Commissioner of Education under the Department of the Interior, that the funds available were considered by him to be only 35 percent of the amount really necessary adequately to carry 139751-37-pt. 2- 4 |