Word: potatoe
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Some Potatoes. In theory the $2.3 billion already laid out will be recouped when CCC sells its holdings, but in actual practice the taxpayer has been hit with some fantastic losses. Because of a potato surplus in 1947, the Department of Agriculture last year restricted the acreage. But farmers simply planted rows closer together and presented CCC with a bumper crop of 446 million bushels. Net loss to date: $203 million. In the coming potato season Congress may get tougher and tell farmers, not how many acres they can plant, but how many bushels they can grow...
Unlike the egg and potato surpluses, which have been problems for years, the flaxseed surplus is a new monster of the department's own making. U.S. paint manufacturers, big users of linseed oil (crushed from flaxseed), were being gouged by Argentine suppliers at the end of World War II. So the department encouraged domestic production by pegging the price of flaxseed at $6 a bushel. The encouraged farmers raised so much flaxseed that the market collapsed. CCC loss to date on flaxseed and linseed oil: $73 million...
...week's end, 32-year-old Paul Coates had gained five pounds. He had sampled Scotch haggis (oatmeal and suet pudding), frankfurters & sauerkraut, spareribs, and potato latkes (pancakes), still had some 250 meals to go. A thoughtful reader had sent him a tin of baking soda, but Coates was no quitter. Gritted he: "I'll follow through...
Good Years & Bad. Embarrassed by the Post series, Aroostook farmers rushed forward with explanations. They argued, as every farmer does, that good years only made up for many bad ones, and that their business is at the mercy of the weather. They pointed out that potato raising is an expensive business, with all the costs of planting, harvesting and shipping to come out of their Government checks. But even the potato lobby in Washington (headed by Senator Owen Brewster) had realized that it had begun to overdo...
...less land, by planting the rows a little closer together and piling on the DDT and fertilizer. Aroostookians had themselves persuaded Agriculture Secretary Charles Brannan to cut the support price from 90% to 60%, they say. But the House has put it back up to 90%. The big potato grab wasn't over...