Time Clock, Sep. 19, 1955

FARM INCOMES will be boosted and surplus products cut back, if Agriculture Secretary Benson can persuade Congress to okay a mammoth new crop-control program that may cost as much as $500 million a year. Benson wants to buttress present flexible price supports by paying farmers $10 to $12 an acre yearly to grow grass, cover crops and trees on their land, thus cut down on overall farm output by taking 40 million acres out of food production.

U.S. EXPORTS are steaming ahead, the Commerce Department reports. The business boom in Western Europe and Canada pushed American sales abroad to $8.1 billion for the year’s first seven months, a full 10% above the comparable period of last year. Biggest increases in sales were to Canada, Britain, Holland, Germany, more than offsetting declining exports to Asia and Latin America.

URANIUM will continue indefinitely as the primary fuel for peaceful uses of atomic energy, predicts Atlas Corp. President Floyd Odium, and widespread use of thorium is years away. By 1965, he estimated, the U.S. will need 4,000,000 tons of uranium ore yearly, far more than is being mined today.

U.S. RAILROADS will have to spend $20 billion for capital improvements in the next decade to meet growing transportation needs, says Pennsylvania Railroad President James Symes. His forecast for 1965 rail business: 850 billion ton-miles, 53% above 1954’s total.

PAPER MERGER is in the making. Mead Corp., one of the biggest U.S. producers of magazine and book paper, will take over Chillicothe Paper Co. (assets: $7,240,812) in a stock swap (1% shares of Mead for each share of Chillicothe).

PRIVATE POWER is hoping to score another victory in the Northwest. Following the Federal Power Commission’s decision in favor of Idaho Power Co.’s three-dam plan for Hell’s Canyon (TIME, Aug. 15), Pacific Northwest Power Co. (a combine of four companies) asked FPC for licenses to build at Mountain Sheep and Pleasant Valley, some 30 miles downstream from Hell’s Canyon on the Snake River.

GUARANTEED ANNUAL WAGE got past a big obstacle. By ruling that Ford Motor Co.’s 5¢ hourly contributions to layoff plans are not wages, the U.S. Labor Department freed Ford (and other automakers) from including layoff payments in computing overtime—a key condition Ford had set in agreeing to G.A.W.

STATION WAGONS are fast becoming one of the most popular auto models. As the all-purpose family car, station wagons are now selling at the rate of 500,000 yearly (v. 29,600 in 1946).

PROXY FIGHT for control of Libby, McNeill & Libby was won by the old management, hands down. Biggest help came from the SEC. In an unusual move, it barred the votes of the independent stockholders group because of “false and misleading statements” and because it did not fully disclose its membership; thus the Libby management’s nine-director slate was elected without contest. Meanwhile, the independents filed an appeal to have the ruling set aside.

CUBAN OIL will get a big push from Standard Oil Co. (Indiana). Standard has earmarked $10 million to drill in 12 million acres of south Cuba’s coastal land and tideland, will own a permanent half-interest in any productive wells it brings in after spending the total sum.

BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES, which has widened its lead in the U.S. textile industry by buying three other companies, is bursting its seams again. Latest buy: St. Louis Ely & Walker Dry Goods Co., one of the nation’s biggest textile distributors, for $64.3 million.