During the fiscal year 1940-41 the A. A. A. contracted for aerial photography covering 268,434 square miles. A part of this photography covered areas which had been photographed in previous years. This reflying was necessary because changes in field lines, relocation of roads and highways, terracing, and clearing of forests, made since the original flying, had altered the whole appearance of the area so that the costs of delineating these changes on the old photography would have exceeded the prevailing prices for new photography. The cost of photography for which contracts were let during the year averaged about $2.25 per square mile flown. The flying is done by private companies under contract to the A. A. A. These companies develop the film and turn the negatives over to one of the A. A. A. laboratories, one of which is in Washington, D. C., and the other in Salt Lake City, Utah. These laboratories inspect the film for defects, before storing it in fireproof vaults, and make ratioed photographic enlargements from those negatives. The enlargements, which are accurate to within a few hundredths of an inch, are used by the A. A. A. to check farm acreages. This photography is also being used by other agencies of the Government for national defense purposes, and recently new equipment has been added to the two A. A. A. laboratories for experimental work and to take care of the greatly increased demands for reproductions. NAVAL STORES CONSERVATION PROGRAM Objectives of the 1940 conservation program for gum naval stores producers included the conservation of timber resources, and prevention of their uneconomic use and wasteful exploitation, through the adoption of approved turpentining practices such as prohibition of working small trees (less than 9-inch diameter breast height), better fire protection, and better cutting practices. The program was administered by the Forest Service and financed by funds made available to the A. A. A. for conservation purposes. Naval stores farmers were paid at the rate of three-fourths of a cent per face (chipped area of the tree from which the gum flows) for all faces worked under approved practices and 5 cents per face for faces taken out of operation on small trees as required by provisions of the program. Damage to future usefulness for merchantable timber is not as serious in the case of large trees as it is in the case of small trees. Because of large surpluses of naval stores, most of which had accumulated in the hands of the Government through Commodity Credit Corporation loans, the provisions of the 1940 program required a minimum curtailment of croppage of at least 20 percent with permission to discontinue work on up to 40 percent of otherwise eligible working faces. For such faces as were discontinued under these provisions of the program, 4 cents per face was paid. Payments earned under this program approximated $1,200,000, which was paid to 2,785 participating farmers in the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. PARTICIPATION Each year an increasing number of farmers have cooperated in A. A. A. programs. The figure has increased from less than 2 million participants in 1933 to more than 6 million in 1940. The number of farmers who qualified for payments under the 1940 program showed an increase of almost 5 percent over 1939. The cropland on participating farms in 1940 represented 80 percent of all cropland in the United States, as compared with 78 percent in 1939. Preliminary estimates indicate that farmer participation continued to mount in 1941. DEVELOPMENT OF THE 1941 PROGRAM Following the established pattern of embodying farmer recommendations in each year's program, delegates to the National A. A. A. Conference met in Washington in July 1940 to chart the course of the 1941 A. A. A. program. Even though large grain supplies were already on hand, the conference recommended and adopted provisions for strengthening the Ever-Normal Granary so as to guarantee adequate reserves for all possible needs. At that time the world was stunned by the blow to freedom that the dictator war machine had dealt the peace-loving nations of Europe, but the people of this country were relatively unaroused as to the bearing the rapid march of events abroad eventually would have upon the United States. This country, as a whole, was not approaching its problems then in terms of an all-out defense effort. Therefore, it was significant that farmers-through farmer-delegates and A. A. A. field officials-emphasized the strengthening of the Ever-Normal Granary for 1941. Time has vindicated the wisdom of that action. The grains stored in the Ever-Normal Granary have proved invaluable to our defense effort, for these grains are being converted into concentrated foods for the democracies and have served to improve the morale and health of the American people through a better balanced diet. In 1941, when the all-out defense effort assumed full-fledged emergency proportions and we shifted our defense machinery from low into high gear, the preparedness action of farmers in the summer of 1940 stood the Nation in good stead. Moreover, agriculture was already mobilized for action. A. A. A. committeemen, functioning as experienced bodies, provided an action organization reaching into every rural community in the country. United States farmers are on the job, fulfilling their responsibility in the food-for-defense program. The 1941 program was molded so as to conform to the requirements of this Nation in building an impregnable defense, without throwing overboard the conservation gains that have been made in the last 8 years. It was shaped with a vivid awareness of the inflammable nature of the European war and of its possible spread to areas vital to our national welfare. Therefore, the program was properly set upon a plane of ample production to meet any emergency, with the realization that if, by some favorable turn of events, the war should end soon, we would have at our disposal the greatest of all peace weapons-food. Aside from the accelerated national defense developments, the 1941 program was fashioned along the same general lines as the programs for 1939 and 1940. The 1941 program, however, provided for wider latitude in accomplishing greater conservation in areas where feed crops are not generally grown for market; more freedom in earning the soil-building allowance on small farms; reclassification of restoration land; addition of soil-building practices better fitted to local conditions; and increased deferred-grazing payments. In keeping with the policy of obtaining maximum conservation results for the money spent under the agricultural conservation program, a number of States in the Southern and East Central Regions adopted plans in 1941 requiring the accomplishment of increased conservation in earning A. A. A. payments as a substitute for the total acreage allotment provisions in the program. Under the acreage-allotment method, the farmer could earn full allotment payments simply by planting within his allotments. The substitute plan made it necessary for a farmer to carry out practices to earn the full soil-building allowance or to plant a certain percentage of his cropland in erosion-resisting, soil-building crops in order to qualify for full payment on allotment crops. The effectiveness of the substitute plan was demonstrated in 1940-41 by the fact that there was a large increase in soil-building practices carried out and some farmers doubled their acreages of closeseeded crops in order to meet their farm goals in 1941. Significant changes, based on results of the 1941 experimental plans, are being contemplated in the national program for 1942— changes which will mean that a larger portion of A. A. A. payments will be earned through the carrying out of soil-building practices. Table 2 shows 1940 and 1941 national acreage goals for individual crops, table 3 shows the 1940 and 1941 rates for computing soilbuilding allowances, and table 4 shows the 1940 and 1941 rates of payment for planting within acreage allotments. TABLE 2.-National acreage goals for individual crops in 1940 and 1941 2 Combined goal for dark air-cured, fire-cured, and Virginia sun-cured tobacco. Equivalent to 1936-1937 acreages. TABLE 3.-1940 and 1941 rates for computing soil-building allowances General crops and nondepleting acreage in areas B and C (deficit general-crop areas), per acre.. $0.63 Commercial vegetables, per acre.. Nondepleting acreage in area A (surplus-producing general-crop areas), per acre. $0.70 Commercial orchards, per acre. TABLE 4.-1940 and 1941 rates of payment for planting within acreage allotments |