The CHAIRMAN. Why do you have Czechoslovakia set up here? Mr. DODD. It is not in the program, but it does ship grain into other areas, Mr. Chairman, and we thought the production would be of interest to the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Does Hungary ship in there, too?

Mr. DODD. Yes, very much so. Hungary has been a very large producer in prewar, and a large exporter.

Mr. STEFAN. And they have a better grain, better class of wheat. Mr. DODD. It is a great wheat-raising area; yes.

The CHAIRMAN. The Russian wheat crop last year was nothing like it used to be in prewar?

Mr. DODD. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. And their crop the year before was less than that. Mr. DODD. That is right; they had less acreage in than the year before.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; both in 1946 and 1947, considerably less than prewar.

Mr. DODD. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Rumania: You do not have the acreage shown for that.

For Hungary the acreage is down. The acreage seems to be down in a great deal of Europe, more than the United Kingdom.

Mr. DODD. The yield will undoubtedly be better. You know, of course, last year they experienced perhaps the worst winterkill in about 50 years.

The CHAIRMAN. That was a year ago?

Mr. DODD. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Not last year?

Mr. DODD. A year ago this last year.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you have Sweden down for a very small

amount.

Mr. DODD. That is for 1947.

The CHAIRMAN. They have a very small acreage.

Mr. DODD. I believe so; Sweden cannot produce a great deal. The CHAIRMAN. It is only about two-thirds of what she had last year.

Mr. DODD. That is the winter wheat, which normally would be about 75 percent; and you would have about 25 percent to be added to that. You will note the comment on the right-hand side, that the fall grain wintered well, and spring work started early. I think that their total acreage will be up to something like it was last year and the year before. The winter wheat normally accounts for only about 75 percent of the total acreage.

The CHAIRMAN. Rumania seemed to have quite a considerable percentage of prewar.

Mr. DODD. Rumania could export more to other countries if she had the equipment; and there was a lack of fertilizer. Rumania has to have plenty of fertilizer; if she had that they would be pretty close.

The CHAIRMAN. Where do they get the fertilizer and that sort of thing?

Mr. DODD. That would have to come from Russia. They use a lot of nitrogen on wheat land. So far as phosphates and potash, of course, they have the potash mines, not under Russian domination, therefore they have got plenty of potash.

The CHAIRMAN. I am a little surprised at the figures for Italy. They seem to have pretty near the acreage they had prewar, maybe 8 percent less, but their crop seems to be very substantially down.

Mr. DODD. I think that is entirely a matter of fertilizer and equipment. You will note the estimated crop is 240,000,000 for this year. The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. DODD. As compared with the average of 279,000,000 average production prewar. They are on a drive to increase production to get back to the prewar figure. The 1947 production was 205,000,000. They expect to get back fairly close with the 240,000,000 for 1948. We are getting reports that the crop will be very good for this year.

WHEAT SITUATION IN WESTERN GERMANY

The CHAIRMAN. In the western Germany picture I do not understand why that should not be a good picture.

Mr. DODD. It is not, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. And what is the reason?

Mr. DODD. I do not know that I can tell you all of the reasons.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there anyone here who does know?

Mr. ROSSITER. The winter wheat acreage is down, it is well below the plan in western Germany; we have no indication of the spring acreage. Mr. DODD. There again the difficulty, one of them, has been getting sufficient seed in time; and as Mr. Rossiter pointed out, as a result of the drought holding on pretty late it was pretty hard to get sufficient acreage in last fall.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You do not know the percentage of production? Mr. DODD. No, but they are making a drive to get additional seed for spring planting.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You do not have any indication on that yet? Mr. DODD. No, but we should have the figures in a short time; we have just sent some of our crop estimators over to Germany to see what the situation is.

The CHAIRMAN. They need somebody who knows something about putting it in.

Mr. DODD. Both putting it in and getting the seed.

The CHAIRMAN. They ought to have plenty of people to work on the farm.

Mr. DODD. I do not think there is any question about the labor situation.

(The table was submitted later :)

Wheat: Acreage and production, prewar average and annual 1946-48, western Germany and Turkey

• Crop outlook favorable, with moisture supplies ample, at latest report.

Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations. Prepared or estimated on the basis of official statistics of foreign governments, reports of U. S. Foreign Service officers, results of office research, or other information.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, their farms tractors would not be so necessary. Mr. DODD. A good many of them are. farms on which tractors are used.

are quite cut up and the

They do have some large

The CHAIRMAN. It looked to me as if they did not have any when I was around, to speak of. I think I saw a half dozen, maybe, over the whole of Germany, and we drove over a good part of the best agricultural land; I saw only a few that were working in the field; at that time I saw very few tractors. I do not just understand it. What became of the tractors you sent over there?

Mr. DODD. We did not send them over, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. But they were sent over from this country, a great many of them; I do not know what became of them.

The same thing would apply to France; we did not see any sign of tractors that we were supposed to have sent in there and they were supposed to have made; I just do not understand that. What has become of them? Maybe they were in the warehouse, I do not know. Does anyone know? It seems to me that somebody ought to know something about the agricultural picture over there.

REQUIREMENTS FOR TRACTORS IN PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES

Now, we will just take Germany, and looking at the big sheet, this big table gives the tractor picture, 15,000 in 1947; imports was 2,100, manufacture 17,000.

Then you have in here something like 2,400 exports, and 10,000 to be made. I suppose we will have to finance all of the imports,

but, with that 15,000, in going over the biggest part of the agricultural territory, it seems to me we would have seen more than three or four tractors.

Mr. DODD. I did see quite a good many tractors, Mr. Chairman, but not anything like we have on the farms in this country.

The CHAIRMAN. With 15,000 scattered around-I do not know, but it looks a little funny to me.

Then, in Greece, we know they had them stored up in warehouses. Mr. DODD. Some of them, because they did not have people to run them.

The CHAIRMAN. They did not have any use for them.

Mr. DODD. They did not have the people who knew how to run them. The CHAIRMAN. Then they had so many small farms, 3 to 5 acres mostly, and they could only use 100 or 150, and they must have had 1,000.

Now in the French picture: These people are supposed to get imports of 36,000 tractors.

Mr. DODD. Thirty-six thousand units on this big table.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. DODD. And 18,500 manufactured.

Mr. MAHON. What page is that?

The CHAIRMAN. Page 8; this is for France; they are supposed to get imports of 21,150 and to have a total of 36,000 of imports, and are to produce 18,000 themselves.

Mr. STEFAN. The 18,000 might be for reexport, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. That might be; I do not know, but if we are going to supply tractors to them we ought to find out. The prewar imports were 23,000, with 25,000 available. In here the 1946 figure shows they had 9,000 available; and in 1947 they had 15,000 available, and the biggest part of their farms are not more than 10 or 12 acres. The whole picture seems quite funny, and there should be a more proper approach to that from our own standpoint before we get through.

Mr. NORTHRUP. I think the figures before you, Mr. Chairman, need some further explanation. In many instances the data for 1946 and 1947-and I made a check on it yesterday, and personally I would not want to be responsible for it—but I did want to be sure that you have the right information before you.

Mr. STEFAN. You are talking about France now?

Mr. NORTHRUP. France at the moment.

Mr. DODD. On page 8.

Mr. NORTHRUP. But my comment will apply to the figures so far as tractors are concerned, where in most cases they were taken from the original Paris statement.

The original Paris report on farm machinery and tractors, for last year, is very sketchy and not too reliable. Apparently they did not have anything more than limited information concerning the tractors. Now, let me give you some figures for France. France has now about 60,000 tractors on all of their farms.

The CHAIRMAN. 60,000 tractors on their farms.

Mr. NORTHRUP. That is right, as compared with prewar of about 33,000.

But let us take a look at the number of farms they have which can use tractors.

Mr. DODD. What was the figure for prewar?

Mr. NORTHRUP. Thirty-three thousand, prewar.

The CHAIRMAN. Are these figures any good?

Mr. NORTHRUP. We believe they are as good as can be obtained.

The CHAIRMAN. According to the table that has been given us they had 250,000 coming in; that would mean they did not have any attrition during the war, if those figures are correct.

Their prewar production was 25,000; and the imports would not look like they had 25,000 available for their domestic economy if they only had 33,000 on hand at the beginning of the war. It looks a bit fishy. I do not know, and I am just trying to find out what the facts

are.

Mr. NORTHRUP. I will try to give them to you. I am suggesting to you, Mr. Chairman, that the figures as far as tractors are concerned I do not believe were any too accurate; that they are not sufficiently accurate to give us a comparison, prewar. And, I would like to give you the information for the other countries the same as I am giving it for France.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

Mr. NORTHRUP. I think I should give you the number of farms and the other information about France before we leave it.

In France they have a total of nearly 4,000,000 farms with an average size of the farms of about 28.7 acres. But the interesting part of that figure is that within their total there are now quite a few farms that are using tractors and can use them well over there.

Then they have in France about 380,000 farms with an average acreage between 50 and 123.

The CHAIRMAN. The average is what?

Mr. NORTHRUP. Between 50 and 123.

They also have in France 114,000 farms, which we call in this country fairly large farms.

Mr. STEFAN. How large?

Mr. NORTHRUP. One hundred and fourteen thousand of them with an acreage of 123 acres or more.

Now generally speaking in France those are the kinds of farms with the kind of crops they produce where they can use tractors and can utilize them well.

That statement is based upon the information we have been able to obtain from our own agricultural attachés in France, who have been there for many years and are thoroughly familiar with conditions.

In addition to that, and the same information applies not only to France but to others, there has been a lot of talk and perhaps more consideration should be given to the fact, that they are on their way to mechanized farming to meet their needs in France, but as regards tractors there have been many of them immobilized for lack of spare parts. And it is very reasonable to assume that many of the tractors which have been immobilized, very possibly are German-made tractors. They have not been able to get spare parts for tractors made in Germany. We are hoping that the German factories can be reactivated, at least enough to get the spare parts from going back into France and other countries that historically bought from Germany.

France buys a lot of tractors from Great Britain, and they make a lot of their own.