Doctor HILL. Ultimately the census bureau gets the complete cotton crop not only for the census year but for every year. That is the only crop, I believe, for which we do get complete anuual figures. Mr. RANKIN. Then you would not depend on these figures, but would take the statistics compiled later from other sources? Doctor. HILL. How was that the last time, Mr. Austin?

Mr. AUSTIN. We got the acreage and the number of bales on the farm schedule.

Doctor HILL. Of course, I suppose it had to be partially an estimate on the part of the farmers. They could measure the cotton that had been ginned up to date, but they made an estimate as to how much there was still to be ginned.

Mr. RANKIN. But there are hundreds of thousands of bales of cotton in the fields, and you could not estimate it.

Mrs. KAHN. Then so far as the cotton crop was concerned, April would be quite all right?

Mr. RANKIN. I think it would.

Mr. MOORMAN. In view of that question, it is also true that corn would be ungathered and tobacco handling and selling would not be complete, and other crops that are among the biggest crops in the United States would be in exactly the same attitude that cotton would be in, too; is not that true?

Doctor HILL. I do not know about the tobacco crop. You do, of course. I do not know about the corn crop. My impression is that the bulk of the corn crop is harvested before the end of November, is it not?

Mr. MOORMAN. No, sir, it is not always.

Mr. WHITE. The gentleman has voiced my opinion exactly. It is impossible to make an accurate census of the production of corn in the States of Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri until much later. Mr. MOORMAN. And it is impossible to include cattle in that situation at all?

Mr. WHITE. It can not be done; it includes cattle also; and the proposition that it is merely a cotton argument is not exactly representative of the situation.

Mr. RANKIN. I just knew more about cotton than anything else. Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Chairman, the suggestion I would make is this, that in view of the discussion that has gone on, we should start the 1st of May. In the first place, in my country and in most places, that is in the Middle West, the roads are much more settled and the weather conditions are much better than they are the 1st of April.

The next reason is that the people do not leave home for a tour until about the first of June. The country schools are held from April into June, and people generally do not leave to go touring until after the schools are out. They have to stay there on account of the children. All this argument about cotton and about the sale of livestock for slaughtering purposes would practically be over with by that time. These winter conditions of ginning cotton and other conditions will be over with.

More than that, the tenant farmers change their places and are settled in them by April, because the breaking of the land and the cultivation and planting has to be done in the latter part of April or May, and I think May is a better month than April. It moves it up

a little further, and gets these statistics in regard to livestock, cotton, and those things better. The people have not started out for their summer touring and vacations until about the first or middle of June. Mr. GREENWOOD. As to weather conditions, May is better than April.

The CHAIRMAN. Are not these statistics taken from the previous year?

Mr. OGG. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to correct a statement in the record. After I sat down, I found that I had made a mistake in regard to one thing. Some one asked me a question.

The CHAIRMAN. I am sure you did not intend to make an inaccurate statement.

Mr. OGG. No, sir; I did not. Some one asked me if this suggestion that I made about December 1 had been suggested by the department to me. I do not know who asked the question. I said that it had not; but thinking it over, I remembered that some time ago they told me they had recommended for the census November 30.

Mr. LOZIER. Mr. Chairman, may I make this suggestion before we adjourn? I do not know what arguments have been advanced for taking the census of agriculture in November and December, but I am quite sure you would not get the results, so far as the Middle West is concerned. There is no question in the world with anybody who lives in the Middle West, like the gentleman from Kansas and myself.

The CHAIRMAN. If I might take the words out of Doctor Hill's mouth, he said that he would be in favor of having the agricultural and population censuses taken on the same date. Is not that correct? Doctor HILL. Yes.

Mr. LOZIER. We know from practical experience, as a matter of fact, that in the Middle West the farmers have cleaned their slates and have the old buisness all wound up and have started on a new program more in April and May than at any other time of the year. Mrs. KAHN. Then the crop estimates would be as of the preceding year?

Mr. LOZIER. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. We will adjourn until next Monday.

Mr. MOORMAN. I would like to get clear on a ceratin matter.

17

D.

eco

Did

you say that the gentlemen had practically agreed that both censuses should be taken in April?

The CHAIRMAN. Doctor Hill said so.

Doctor. HILL. I said that it was desirable that both censuses

Mr. MOORMAN. Is that correct, Doctor.

should be taken together.

(Thereupon, at 12 o'clock m., the committee adjourned until Monday, January 23, 1928, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.)

Jav

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON THE CENSUs,

Monday, January 23, 1928.

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. E. Hart Fenn (chairman) presiding.

There were present before the committee: Mr. A. M. Loomis, secretary of the American Dairy Federation; Dr. Joseph A. Hill, Arthur J. Hirsch, Leon E. Truesdall, William L. Austin, and Fred A. Gosnell, of the Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce.

The CHAIRMAN. We are ready to proceed, gentlemen. We will first hear Mr. Loomis of the American Dairy Federation.

STATEMENT OF A. M. LOOMIS, WASHINGTON, D. C., SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN DAIRY FEDERATION

Mr. LOOMIS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I would like to say that I am not very familiar with this particular committee and its: work, but I have been here in Washington for nearly 10 years, up to this last year connected with the National Grange as Doctor Atkeson's. assistant, so I feel somewhat of a familiarity with this committee's work.

I was elected secretary of the American Dairy Federation three years ago, and this is the first time a census matter has come up since the American Dairy Federation has been organized.

The American Dairy Federation is an organization made up of the 17 national organizations in the dairy industry-I will put a list of those in record, if you wish me to-formed for the purpose of studying the problems between the various parts of the industry and to take care of legislative governmental matters.

We discovered only recently that we had what we thought were somewhat important interests in this next census, and so at a meeting of our executive committee held here last Thursday and Friday they commissioned me to come up here just to make a few suggestions.. Part of these suggestions, if I am not going to take too much timeI will try not to-are for the purpose of getting them into your record so that they may be before the Census Bureau and other people working on the census.

I want to say also that before coming here I had a rather long conference with the committee in the Department of Agriculture to which census matters are referred-Dr. L. C. Gray, Dr. O. B. Baker, and they called in some others who were familiar with livestock matters.

I am a little embarrassed over what to say about one particular matter, and that is the census of distribution. I am familiar in a very limited way-only in a very general way-with what is contemplated in the census of distribution. It is rather a new thing. I have looked the bill over with some care, and I find no mention. of what there may be to it or what it contemplates, with the single exception of the fact that in the opening paragraph there is a census. of distribution authorized.

I might say that all the branches of the dairy industry which are federated in the American Dairy Federation will be very much interested in what is contemplated in the census of distribution, and I think perhaps I ought to take that up later when I have read the record and see what has been said, with which I am not familiar now. For instance, one of the members of this association is the American Association of Creamery Butter Manufacturers. Members of that organization make more than half of all the creamery butter made in the United States.

Mr. RANKIN. May I make a suggestion? I have an amendment which I have prepared, which I will offer at the proper time. I will read it. It is an amendment to section 4. On page 4, following the word "distribution" insert the following sentence:

The census of distribution shall include the distribution from the farm, warehouse, and other place of storage and sale of agricultural products of wheat by grades, corn by grades, cotton by grades and length of staple, wool by grades and condition, tobacco by type, sugar cane and sugar beets by grade, cottonseed by grade, dairy products by kind and grade, and rice by grade; and the distribution from the factory, warehouse, and other places stored for sale, of the manufactured products of wheat flour and other wheat products, corn meal and other corn products, cotton goods, woolen goods, tobacco products, cottonseed products, automobile, iron and steel products, sugar of all grades. And also the Director of the Census may add such other agricultural and manufactured products to the census of distribution as he may deem practicable and desirable.

Now, I just wonder if that amendment there, carrying this item with reference to dairy products, would meet with your approval or comply with your suggestion in this matter?

Mr. LOOMIS. May I ask you to read again just the opening sentence?

Mr. RANKIN (reading):

The census of distribution shall include the distribution from the farm, warehouse, and other places of storage and sale, agricultural products of wheat by grades, etc.

And with reference to dairy products I used these words: “Dairy products by kinds and grades."

The CHAIRMAN. You will confine that to the date that may be determined in the bill?

Mr. RANKIN. Well, yes, this amendment merely goes into the bill, you understand.

The CHAIRMAN. I mean, but you confine the plan to the date when the census shall be taken? It would not be continuing. We can not put that into the census bill very well-I mean as a continuing thing.

Mr. RANKIN. You mean to be taken in the next census?

The CHAIRMAN. Your distribution of farm products would be taken every five years. What I mean is this: There are certain

dates mentioned in this bill when the census shall be taken. Mr. RANKIN. You mean every 10 years?

The CHAIRMAN. Every five years. Agriculture is every five years. But the dates are mentioned in this bill when that census shall be taken. In other words, you would not have then be taking censuses every January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December?

Mr. LozIER. Your question goes to the point as to whether or not this is a continuing power?

The CHAIRMAN. That is just it. I mean whether they shall be ascertaining this all the time.

Mr. RANKIN. You mean every year?

The CHAIRMAN. Every year, etc. Will you confine your amendment to the limitations prescribed in the bill as to date?

Mr. RANKIN. Certainly.

The CHAIRMAN. But you would not want that in the bill in that language?

Mr. RANKIN. Well, I don't know whether we could put anything into the bill-if we could get an amendment into this bill and make it so it would stand the parliamentary test, to require this census of distribution every year I would do it, because I am going to start in now and serve notice

Mr. JOHNSON (interposing). But you are going beyond the power of this committee.

Mr. RANKIN. That is what I say. It would not be proper in this bill.

Mr. JOHNSON. A general census is one thing and these detailed reports come from the departments, and that is a different matter. The CHAIRMAN. Such as tobacco, cottonseed, and all that. Mr. RANKIN. And that has to come under a separate act? Mr. JOHNSON. I think so.

Mr. RANKIN. But so far as this amendment is concerned, this comes under the provisions of this bill here, but I was going to say that so far as these reports are concerned I expect to prepare and introduce another bill to also have this census of distribution given along with these census reports that are made monthly or once a year, whichever it is.

The CHAIRMAN. These are made monthly, I believe.

Mr. RANKIN. In that connection, Mr. Johnson, if you will excuse me, I particularly am going to try to get a bill passed to require the Census Bureau in publishing these reports here to give the grade and staple of the cotton on hand at all time, to keep the country informed as to what kind of material it is.

The CHAIRMAN. That is in the act.

Mr. LOOMIS. Mr. Chairman, this discussion has clarified the situation so far as my mind is concerned. In view of what has been said, I do not think that there is a thing that I care to say now relative to a census of distribution. When the other bill comes up we may want to be heard as to what may or may not be included.

Just in passing, I think it would be very difficult to have a census of dairy products by grades, but that is a matter of study and I will not say anything with reference to it.

Mr. RANKIN. I wondered if that expression that I read with reference to dairy products was full enough. It merely provides for dairy products by kinds and grades. I wonder if you would like to have that amplified in this amendment.

Mr. LOOMIS. No; I think not. Now, as to these specific suggestions which have come as a result of our discussion in our own committee and my study of the bill, we are concerned with the agricultural census and particularly with the most accurate possible enumeration of livestock.

Secondly, and almost as strongly, are we concerned with a statement of the livestock on farms, first, as to date. The censuses of