Evening star., 1940-12-02
Mississippi Delta
4! And Columbia Basins
lsvo
May Aid Migrants
Development Slow,
However, Witness Tells
House Committee
BY BLAIR BOLLES.

The Mississippi River delta and
+ the Columbia River Basin around
the Grand Coulee Dam region in
the Far Northwest are two unde-
< yeloped areas which in the future
may become promised lands for the
country's economically distressed
( farmers, H. H. Tollev, chief of the
Bureau of Agricultural Economics,
said today. He appeared as a wit
ness before the House Select Com
n7ittee on Interstate Migration.
Z More than 100000 acres of rich
soil lie in the Mississippi delta, pur-
chasable before drainage at $3.50
to $40 an acre. Mr.. Tolley said-a
new frontier with greater promise
than any section of the United
States. But he added that its de-
Velopment would be slow and that
the persons most in need of good
land-the potential migrants-are
least equipped with capital for buy
ing in the promised lands"
The Agriculture Department Off
cial said that the solution of what
is known as the migrant problem"
depends on opening up new avenues
of migration. Distressed persons in
rural areas who want to move on
in search of "greener pastures" now
have few places to go, he said.
Hit by Urban Depression.
! Mr.. Tolley said that the lack of
opportunity in the cities for indus
trial labor during the last decade
khas contributed to rural distress
The defense program, opening new
Jobs in industry, he explained, will
serve as only a temporary urban
outlet for the country population.
Good land is almost as scarce as
city jobs, Mr.. Tolley reported. The
immediate problem for improving
the situation is to make good land
available, he said. and the chief
. potential good land areas are the
Columbia River Basin-which will
be costly because irrigation is need
ed-and the Mississippi Delta.
M"UnlesS opportunities for moving
from the farms to the cities can be
opened up for the rural distressed"
Mr.. Tolley said, in a way that has
not been true during the last decade,
or even the last two decades, the
farm population is going to in
: crease more rapidly than the in
dustrial population. The birth rate
on farms is much higher than in
cities"
Migrant Betters Self.
Ronnell Lynch, migrant. told
the committee he moved from
farm in Tennessee to a farm on the
Eastern Shore of Virginia to better
himself. The move was successful,
he said. He now makes So a week
"a fair living" he added
Some of the factors which con-
tribute to rural distress were de-
scribed by Paul Taylor, professor
of economics, University of Cali
fornia. He said:
Farm consolidation results in a
succession of displacementS. A dis
placed Western Iowa tenant, for ex-
ample, may move into the poorer
land of Southern Iowa, displacing
a tenant there who moves to still
poorer land in the Ozarks, in turn
displacing a family there who may
take to the road. AS a Middle
Western farmer put it, They go
over like a row of dominoes.'
Mechanization Reduces Labor.
determination reduces farm la
Dor from the status of hired man
with substantial security and social
equality to the level of the lower
grades of industrial workers. Work
increasingly is for wages only and
not for board as well. With in
creasing mechaniZation the status
Of tenants is also declining.
"Co-operative ownership of me-
ehanical equipment, long a feature
of American agriculture, particular
ly in the threshing ring, shows evi-
dence of expanding. This, together
with cooperative farming, appears
to offer the principal immediate off,
set to large scale displacement
through mechanization. These
forms of cooperation, however, are
not yet important enough factors.
They should be stimulated to the
point where they become generally
recognized as attainable alternatives
to disDosseSSion.