Shipments of live stock from May 17, 1917, to April 18, 1918, inclusive, were as follows: Cattle, 1,731; hogs, 673; sheep, 372; horses and mules, 282. I trust that you have secured from the Bureau of Crop Estimates information concerning production of cotton, alfalfa, and other important agricultural products. If we can be of any further assistance to you, do not hesitate to call upon us.

Very truly, yours,

WELLS A. SHERMAN, Specialist in Market Surveys.

Crop statistics of Imperial Valley for 1919.
[Taken from Southern Pacific Co.'s records. ]

Cantaloupes, 7,500 cars_.

Lettuce, 1,069 cars_

Watermelons, 1,000 cars.

Barley, estimated 60,000 acres, yield 35 bushels to the acre, 2,100,000 bushels

Wheat, 40,000 acres, estimated yield, 1,600,000 bushels_.

Milo maize, estimated 150,000 acres.

Cotton estimated 140,000 acres.

Value.

$650,000 9, 000, 000 240,000

2, 520, 000 3, 000, 000

There were 3,306 acres of winter vegetables planted 1919. If water conditions are stabilized it is estimated by a survey already made that there will be from 8,000 to 10,000 acres next year.

Coachella reports 417 cars of onions shipped, 1919, 540 crates per car, at $3 per crate f. o. b. valley, value $675,540.

There is one thing I would like to speak about, Mr. Davis's remarks that he made a few minutes ago. He said it would be dangerous to plant alfalfa. Well, now, I have raised alfalfa ever since I can remember, and I have raised it there in the valley for the last 16 years, and I don't consider that a shortage of water for two months on alfalfa there in the valley in the summer time is any detriment to it at all, except you just lose that time on the alfalfa. I have let my alfalfa go dry there a number of times during the summer months, during July and August, but if you put water on it again, as soon as cool weather comes on, it will strike right out and grow just as though nothing had ever happened to it.

The CHAIRMAN. How long does it take to produce a crop of alfalfa there?

Mr. BROOKS. It depends on the time of the year. Now, early in the season we let it grow about 30 to 35 days. Along in May and June we can get a good crop of alfalfa in 25 days.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you might lose a whole crop by being out of water?

Mr. BROOKS. You might lose one or two crops, but still you could raise five or six crops.

The CHAIRMAN. And that would be enough for the year, anyhow? Mr. BROOKS. That gives a person all he wants to do.

Mr. BARBOUR. You mentioned the fact that the railroad had come in there since that country was developed, and you also mentioned the fact that the majority of the travel in and out of the valley was by automobile. Are there State highways in the valley?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARBOUR. The regular paved California highway?

Mr. BROOKS. It is not paved all the way, but it is paved practically all the way. For a little way through the mountains it is not paved. Mr. BARBOUR. Where does that highway go to?

Mr. BROOKS. It goes to San Diego.

Mr. BARBOUR. Now, what are the plans of the State of California. under this recent bond issue that we voted about two weeks ago out there, what are the plans in the Imperial Valley? Aren't they going to build a lot more of highways down in your country?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes; there is one to be built, and they are working on it now, and that is to go down from Colton and down through the Coachella Valley.

Mr. BARBOUR. And connects with Los Angeles?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARBOUR. With highways leading clear to the northern end of the State and also to Arizona?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes, sir; and through to Yuma, Ariz.

Mr. BARBOUR. I just wanted to bring that out to show that the State of California has confidence in that country down there.

Mr. BROOKS. Yes; they have promised us that that will be one of the first pieces built out of this next bond issue.

Mr. ROSE. They have already built a part of it now.

Mr. THOMPSON. Are you to have a trunk-line railroad from San Diego to the East through there?

Mr. BROOKS. They expect this year to get through. There is something like 9 miles, I believe, that they have got to finish on the San Diego road, and that will connect through from San Diego with us at El Centro. Then they can either go out by Niland on the Southern Pacific, or they can loop down through Mexico and come out by Yuma.

Mr. BARBOUR. From San Diego?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes, sir; from San Diego.

Mr. BARBOUR. What system is that? Is it the Rock Island that is building that road?

Mr. BROOKS. I think now the Southern Pacific owns it, do they not?

Mr. BARBOUR. It is pretty hard to tell just which one of those roads does own it.

Mr. BROOKS. It was started by the Spreckles people, but I think the Southern Pacific owns it now.

Mr. SMITH of Idaho. Do you have any trouble with disease among cattle, sheep, and hogs down there in that hot country?

Mr. BROOKS. Very little. They did have a little cholera in there a few years ago, but I think they have practically eliminated it. Mr. SMITH of Idaho. How about the cattle?

Mr. BROOKS. They are very healthy, too. They told us when we first went in there that a hog couldn't live there, but I never saw hogs

do better in any country. In fact, when I used to raise hogs there a number of years ago I would let them harvest my grain. I would put in 100 or 200 acres of barley, and when it got ripe I would just turn the hogs into it, three or four or five hundred head of hogs. Mr. HUDSPETH. You don't have the cattle tick?

Mr. BROOKS. No, sir.

Mr. THOMPSON. Do you have sheep in there, too? Do you raise sheep?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes, sir; Mr. Shaw can tell you about sheep. I don't raise sheep, myself, but he is president of the sheep association. Mr. HUDSPETH. You never have any frost? You raise crops the year around?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes; in some years we have frost. I have seen winters there that went through without a bit of frost, but we usually expect frost from about the first of December until the last of January. We may get frost any time during those months, but other years I have seen it where there wasn't a speck of frost, and I have cut a good crop of alfalfa hay between Christmas and New Year's.

Mr. SHAW. Those frosts may occur one day in three weeks, or one day in a month in the winter.

Mr. BROOKS. Yes.

Mr. SHAW. But one frost during a year is not sufficient to kill vegetation.

Mr. HUDSPETH. I didn't think when I was there in August that you would ever have any frost there. [Laughter.]

Mr. BROOKS. It didn't feel like it here in Washington when I came here a few weeks ago, either.

Mr. SMITH of Idaho. The insanitary condition of the water going in there is because it runs through Mexico. Now, if this all-American canal is built, will you stop the water from going through Mexico?

Mr. BROOKS. Yes; we will keep it on American soil, and we can control it.

Mr. SMITH of Idaho. But how will you get rid of it?

Mr. BROOKS. The water that we use won't go into Mexico.

Mr. SMITH of Idaho. I know, but the water will come down to irrigate the lands of Mexico. It will come down the Alamo River, won't it?

Mr. TAYLOR. It won't have to come back up into the United States.

Mr. SMITH of Idaho. How will they get rid of the surplus?

Mr. SHAW. It might come down to this point [indicating] and cross through a waste gate, provided here [indicating]. A gate is dropped into the Alamo River and it has a free run from there on to the Salton Sea, and the water is not taken out of that river except at one small diversion dam which doesn't amount to a great deal, irrigating a small section of land, but this is primarily a drainage canal to carry off any surplus water.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that all you have, Mr. Brooks?

Mr. BROOKS. I think that is all, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. We will hear your next witness, then.

STATEMENT OF MR. MIKE LIEBERT, OF SEELY, CALIF.

Mr. LIEBERT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the Imperial County Farm Bureau is an organization covering the entire county of Imperial, Calif. The purpose of this organization is to foster the best interests of the farmer in his every endeavor. It aims to improve and provide for his needs in social life; acts as the instrument for the conveyance and exchange of ideas and knowledge relating to soil and crop culture; and last, but not least, proper consideration is given to the various phases of his financial needs.

As a member and director of this county-wide organization, which it is my pleasure to have been chosen to represent in this hearing before your committee, I beg to say that the question of farm loans has been demanding its most serious consideration.

Much money is needed to defray the expenses incurred in leveling, ditching, and providing the land with water for irrigation that paying crops may be produced. Funds must be on hand or provided for defraying living expenses of the family while the initial reclamation work is being done.. One can not appreciate the serious meaning of all this unless he has gone through the experience of entering upon a tract of barren desert land and pioneering it through the development stage until same becomes a crop-producing farm.

Having settled with my family upon such a tract of land in Imperial Valley eight years ago, I claim to be in position to know something of the many hardships encountered; I know something of the reclaimer's needs in a financial way; I know the assistance he must have to weather the storm successfully. Ofttimes he is compelled to borrow funds to tide him over this expensive and nonproducing period. His borrowing is usually done through regular banking channels. To secure the necessary credit he gives as security a mortgage on his chattel property. This mortgage may even include his scant household goods. These loans are usually made with the understanding that they will be retired with funds derived from a loan made against the land as security. However, such loans on the land can not be made until, by virtue of the United States land laws having been complied with, the title has passed to the entryman from the Government.

Therefore when the farmer acquires title his first duty and obligation is to obtain a loan on his land. Accordingly, after Congress had passed the Federal farm loan act the farmers of Imperial Valley asked the farm bureau to take such steps as would be required that provision might be made at once for their taking advantage of its benefits. Some farmers needed funds to meet improvement debts as mentioned above, others to purchase live stock that their farms might be made more productive, others to further improve their farms with needed fences and buildings, while others needed funds with which to pay off maturing mortgages that had been placed on the land for a short term of years and at a very high rate of interest. As a result of the bureau's efforts three farm loan associations were formed in Imperial County in accordance with provisions of the loan act, and applications were accepted for loans. This was in the spring of 1918. The Seeley Farm Loan Association, of which I am a member, received loans for 13 of its members, with loans amounting to

about $40,000. These loans were made by the Federal farm loan land bank of Berkeley, Calif. At this juncture of affairs, without official notice and without any explanation on the part of the farm land bank, the bank suspended all further applications which it held for loans on Imperial Valley property. These applications were afterwards canceled. We were nonplused over this action, especially as it had never been indicated to us in any manner that such a move was contemplated on the part of the bank. The rumor reached us that the bank had suspended all applications, for the reason, it had decided, not to advance further loans on lands under any irrigation project until their engineer had first reported to them regarding the project's status and future possibilities. We could not understand why this decision had been made, so far as Imperial Valley was concerned, as its possibilities, we thought, were well and favorably known. That we might know the real reason why our loans had been turned down and in the interest of Imperial farmers (who were in dire need of loans) I was commissioned by the bureau to go to Berkeley for an interview with President Joyce, of the Federal land bank. In September, 1918, I called upon President Joyce, in company with Prof. Packard, of the University of California. In our interview President Joyce stated that he was very much interested in Imperial Valley; that he considered it the best and most promising field in his district in which to make loans, but, notwithstanding all this and the fact that he desired his bank to make a good showing in comparison with other land banks over the United States, he did not feel justified in asking the people of the United States to buy the bank's bonds secured by Imperial Valley land mortgages, which mortgages would be made at a low rate of interest and for a long period of years, until the valley had first stabilized its water conditions. He stated further that it was not really necessary to make any investigations in Imperial Valley regarding the water condition, for the people themselves gave proof of the unsatisfactory condition by trying to get away from their present system of taking and handling water. He further advised us that the people should at once take such steps as would be necessary to put the water system in proper control. I informed him that at that particular time a contract was being drafted with the Interior Department making it possible to satisfactorily solve our water problems, and that if such contract was drafted along the lines as anticipated the people would ratify it and put it into force. His reply was to the effect that when the valley had stabilized its water system he would be glad to come into the field and resume loaning on Imperial lands. After the people had ratified the contract as mentioned above, and which contract we have filed with your committee, we again made application to the bank for loans, but without success.

In the interview with Joyce it was our conclusion, judging from his statements, that the reason for his not making a written report to the farm bureau as to suspension of loaning was because of the detrimental effect such a report would have on the valley.

Now, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, a coordinate branch of this Government has put its stamp of disapproval upon Imperial Valley because of its water conditions. We have done our best to better the condition, but we have gone as far as we can without aid, and this aid must come soon if it would be of any avail.