Miss PETERSON. The future cost of raw materials will depend upon the value that the various industries allocate to coal-tar products and light petroleum fractions. They have so many other uses and the demands for these various light naphthas, coal-tar products, are enormous, and that will be a factor to consider.

Mr. HOPE. That is what I was coming to.

Miss PETERSON. Nearly all of the polymers that are used in yarns. have a great many uses in plastic products, leather replacement materials, flexible sheeting, lacquers, films, laminated products, and other materials.

It seems as the market develops for these products there will be more competition for the basic polymers and while the raw materials themselves may go down still the demand will be constantly expanding and possibly some of the materials that the synthetic fiber branch needs would be affected by the total supply. Possibly Dr. Hilbert would like to add something to that.

Mr. HOPE. Yes, Dr. Hilbert.

Dr. HILBERT. Mr. Chairman, I would say that the raw material costs are very appreciable. They vary, of course, from fiber to fiber. but it is a very important factor so far as the industrial company is concerned.

Now the high cost, in the beginning is due to the fact that the plant investment will be very high, particularly in times like this. During the first 5 years the plant-investment cost will probably be written off. That is why the price starts very high. Then the price will usually come down until it reaches a leveling-off point or, for other reasons, starts to go up again. Now prices are going up, due to the increased cost of raw material, the increase in the cost of labor, and so on.

There is one other question you asked, Mr. Hope, concerning Orlon replacing cotton.

Miss Peterson has already pointed out that Orlon may very well go into awning and tent goods. There is another possible use and that is for tobacco shade cloth. Flags are still another product now being produced from cotton that might be made from Orlon.

But the other factor to bear in mind is that Orlon is very resistant to sunlight, and whereas the other materials may deteriorate very fast Orlon may last for several years, may last for almost a lifetime, so from that standpoint it does have an effect upon the use of cotton. Mr. PACE. May I interrupt for a question?

Mr. HOPE. Certainly.

Mr. PACE. Dr. Hilbert, what in your opinion is the hope of building cotton to the same quality of products so it can compete successfully with these other materials?

Dr. HILBERT. That is what we are engaged on now. We might mention to you some of the work that is being done in cooperation with Florida farmers on tobacco shade cloth.

Mr. PACE. Well, of course, your main work has to do with the use of cotton products.

Dr. SCOTT. We have a certain amount of money which is being used for cotton, from the standpoint of developing a satisfactory cloth with the idea of increasing the life of cotton, which will definitely increase its consumption. We are working with the Florida tobacco growers to develop a satisfactory cloth for use in growing tobacco. Heretofore they could only use the cloth for one season as a tobacco

shading material, and then the strength of the cloth was reduced to such an extent that it could not be put out as a tobacco-shading material.

They did use it satisfactorily around the field, but they had to replace it by new cloth for the main borders and shading.

And they told me that if we could increase the life of the fiber, double its life or triple its life, that it would mean that there would be a much larger acreage which would adopt it and make use of it and reduce the cost of the production of the tobacco.

So far we have demonstrated-we have only run it one season, one full season that the cloth is suitable for putting up another season. We are testing that this year. We are going to use it again and the indications are that its life can be doubled and possibly tripled, and thereby there will be a greater acreage put into shade-grown tobacco. Mr. POAGE. Dr. Scott, as you increase the acreage of tobacco in Florida

Dr. SCOTT. This was one of our last year's experiments.

Mr. POAGE. In doing that you take away acreage from some other section, and how are you going to be able to increase the acreage, even of one crop, in this manner without increasing consumption?

Dr. SCOTT. We would be taking away in Florida from the tobacco acreage which would be put into shade-grown varieties rather than the old method.

Mr. POAGE. That is right, but are you taking the market away from the fellow up in North Carolina or the fellow up in Connecticut? You are going to take it away from somebody who is now producing tobacco, and if you simply increase the production of tobacco in Florida or anywhere else, whether it be in Texas or some other State, somebody is going to take somebody else's market. Who are you going to hurt finally with that sort of program?

Dr. SCOTT. With my experience and I am not a tobacco manmy understanding is that there is an increased demand for that type of tobacco and that at the present time, at least, it has not been increased to the extent that it takes away somebody else's market.

The two places, the principal places in this country, which were mentioned earlier are Connecticut-that is where it started-and subsequently it has been taken up in Florida. I do not think there is very much at this stage.

Mr. POAGE. I do not think so either, but when you produce shadegrown tobacco it is going to take the place of some other type of tobacco.

Dr. SCOTT. Yes.

Mr. POAGE. And unless you increase the demand for the product at the same time you are increasing the production I do not see that you would be accomplishing anything except to say that we are going to enable a certain section of the country to grow more of the product at a time when there is an overhanging surplus.

Dr. HILBERT. Mr. Poage, what you say is no doubt correct; there is no doubt about that, but science is moving along. For instance, we have developed atomic energy, and having done so have we opened up Pandora's box? We do not know. But we have got to move ahead. That is true of all developments. For instance, through the use of penicillin we are saving many more lives, and by saving more lives it might be said that we are creating a problem by eventually having an impossibly large population in the world to feed.

Of course, that is one of the difficulties we are faced with, and that is one of the difficulties that industry is faced with, but we have these problems, and of course they are tremendous.

But I think you will agree with me that we cannot stop carrying on these scientific investigations, because we must do so in order to keep up with the developments that are taking place throughout the world unless we are to be put in a very embarrassing situation. If we do not develop them some other country probably will and then we will be left behind.

Mr. PACE. Does any one of you know, whether the right to produce, to manufacture these articles, is spread to other countries, whether they have the right to manufacture them?

Dr. SCOTT. Generally the rights are sold to other countries. That is true practically speaking of all technical developments.

Mr. PACE. So du Pont would possibly have the power to protect itself against the imports back into this country better than the American cotton farmer is able to protect himself?

Dr. SCOTT. That is right.

Miss PETERSON. The early patents involving the acrylonitrile fibers were taken out, in Germany by the I. G. Farbenindustrie in 1938 and there have been a series of patents taken out since then but of course Germany did not get anywhere with these fibers; they did not commercialize them to any extent, I should say. But the patents on acrylonitrile fibers that have been taken out by du Pont-there were a score or more issued to them in 1946-of course have a long period to

run.

Mr. PACE. Are there any questions of any of the witnesses by members of the committee?

Mr. HOPE. Dr. Scott, you spoke a while ago of a number of methods that have been developed in the research laboratory in New Orleans in the way of new uses and that sort of thing. Have most of those gotten to the point where they are now being put into practical use by manufacturers or are they still in the pilot-plant stage?

Dr. SCOTT. Well, I should say that they are in all stages; some of them are still in the pilot-plant stage as yet, and others are in what we might call the semicommercial stage in that textile mills have begun the development of machines. A number of mills have built machines according to our specifications and are trying it out on a real commercial scale. Some of the mills are putting in the machinery on a small scale.

That is the way the development moves forward and if they find it successful, through the use of a small number of machines, they will, naturally, put in more.

I think the methods which we developed for evaluating cotton have been quite universally adopted by the textile mills. We know of a number of large textile mills where they are in daily use.

But to answer your question specifically I would say that these developments are in several different stages of commercial use. We maintain, or try to maintain at least, very close liaison with the textile industry and endeavor to acquaint them with the new improvements that we may make and then encourage them to go ahead and evaluate it in their own mills.

Mr. HOPE. Industry generally, then, has maintained a very close interest in your activities, has it?

Dr. SCOTT. I think we can say it has.

Mr. HOPE. And you have maintained a close interest in their activities?

Dr. SCOTT. That is right.

Mr. PACE. Dr. Scott, of course, Mr. Hope's question brings to mind one of the provisions which this committee wrote into the Agricultural Research Act, not only authorizing but requiring broad research by Government and by industry. Have you found in meeting these problems it necessary to ask industry to take over some of the research and follow it through?

Dr. SCOTT. Under the new Research and Marketing Act we have contracted out the work, not exactly to industry but to commercial research organizations and others outside the Department, a number of problems that are over and above the ones that we are working on in these research laboratories.

Mr. PACE. The committee felt very deeply that possibly the industry would be very rapidly advanced if the Government would collaborate with industry on the one hand and industry would collaborate with the Government on the other.

Dr. SCOTT. That is right.

Mr. PACE. In order to advance these developments.

We left here yesterday, Dr. Hilbert and Dr. Scott, with one question unanswered, on which we were trying to get some information at the time of the adjournment, which had to do with the amount of money now being spent by the Government and the Department on cotton research, and the estimate of the amount of money being spent by the synthetic industry. Have you been able to secure any information along that line?

Dr. HILBERT. Yes. The National Cotton Council has estimated that about $4,000,000 are spent annually by the Federal Government, the State agencies, and research institutes and industry.

That covers the whole field of cotton; it covers the development of new varieties, of harvesting equipment, and in general the development of any new uses or extended uses of cotton fibers.

As far as the amount of money that is expended by the Federal Government in the development of new or extended uses for cotton fiber is concerned, that amounts to approximately $1,000,000.

The Department of Agriculture, in the Bureau that I represent, works under that appropriation.

Now contrasted to that, in 1946, the rayon industry-just the rayon industry-spent $6,000,000, and we understand that that sum of money was increased very appreciably in 1947. And a recent estimate-I do not have the exact figure, and I am not just sure how good that estimate is-but there was a recent estimate of $10,000,000 spent for research by the rayon industry.

I do not have information on the exact amount of money that is being spent on research on all synthetic fibers. In the case of Orlon I understand that through 1946 the amount of money devoted by the Dupont Co. to the development of Orlon was $5,000,000. It is believed that that figure has now moved up to about $10,000,000. But I think it is very apparent that there is several fold more money being spent on research in the synthetic industry than we are spending on cotton. And I have already brought out the reason for that during the hearing. The various industries and organizations have the

money to put into the development of synthetic fibers. The cotton. industry does not have.

I would say that about the only way to get more money devoted to research work on cotton is by financing through the Federal Govern

ment.

Mr. PACE. Are there any further questions?

Miss Peterson, is there any further statement you wish to give to the committee?

Miss PETERSON. No, Mr. Chairman, except that I might add a few words concerning a few of the things that have taken place since I wrote this study, aside from Orlon.

The company that was making casein fiber went out of business in 1948. The plant was taken over by the Virginia Carolina Chemical Co. which is now making a fiber from zein, a protein product from corn. I saw in one of the textile magazines that it is quoted at $1 per pound. It is a short staple fiber and is not a continuous filament yarn. However, it is interesting to note that the casein fiber production was discontinued in this country.

Mr. PACE. Dr. Scott, is there anything else you would like to add? Dr. Scort. I think not.

Mr. PACE. Dr. Hilbert?

Dr. HILBERT. No.

Mr. PACE. The committee is indebted to you very much for furnishing us this information, and what you have had to say will help the committee in the work it has to do.

Mr. HOPE. May I say that I think it has been one of the most interesting sessions we have had before the committee for a long time. Mr. PACE. I think that is true.

Dr. HILBERT. Thank you.

Mr. PACE. It is a pleasure to present to the committee Mr. Walter L. Randolph, who is president of the Farm Bureau Federation of Alabama, and appears here as spokesman for the American Farm Bureau Federation. He desires to present a resolution for the Federation and to discuss the question of the advisability of including 1949 in future cotton-crop allotments.

We will be glad to hear from you, sir.

STATEMENTS OF WALTER L. RANDOLPH, PRESIDENT OF THE ALABAMA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION AND MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION; H. L. WINGATE, PRESIDENT OF THE GEORGIA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION; RANSOM ALDRICH, PRESIDENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI FARM BUREAU FEDERATION; AND HUGH AGNEW, PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION

Mr. PACE. We are delighted to have Mr. Wingate, Mr. Aldrich, and Mr. Agnew with us.

Mr. RANDOLPH. I thought I would call attention to the presence of those gentlemen at this time as they, of course, join in this presența