debtedness upon existing physical marketing facilities, including equipment, land, buildings, and other property. Such loans shall be secured in such manner as in the judgment of the board is adequate." Senator McNary, Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, and in charge of the Bill, expressed the following views during the debate on the amendment (id., p. 1264): "To permit the Government's money to be expended to refinance organizations that now owe country banks and the city banks debts at rates of interest far in excess of the rate which would be obtainable under this bill certainly would be a violation of the spirit of this proposed legislation. It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars; it would cost more than that. I made an estimate that it would absorb every dollar provided in this bill." The amendment was rejected. (Id. 1264.) I am therefore of the opinion that the Board is without authority to make loans for the sole purpose of refinancing mortgages on existing facilities. V The next question submitted is as follows: "Are naval stores an agricultural product within the meaning of the Capper-Volstead Act, and does Federal Farm Board have authority to deal with an organized group of producers of naval stores, assuming that such group is otherwise qualified in form and substance to be termed a cooperative? "This controversy has been up for many years. Naval stores are defined by the Naval Stores Act. The industry is a well known and established one, and no statement of surrounding facts is required in order to properly raise the question. The Congress has several times within the past few years declined to amend the Capper-Volstead Act by specifically including naval stores in so many words in the statute." "Naval stores " are defined in the Naval Stores Act (Act of March 3, 1923, 42 Stat. 1435) as follows: "Sec. 2. When used in this Act— 66 (a) Naval stores' means spirits of turpentine and rosin. "(b) 'Spirits of turpentine' includes gum spirits of turpentine and wood turpentine. "(c) Gum spirits of turpentine' means spirits of turpentine made from gum (oleoresin) from a living tree. "(d) 'Wood turpentine' includes steam distilled wood turpentine and destructively distilled wood turpentine. "(e) 'Steam distilled wood turpentine' means wood turpentine distilled with steam from oleoresin within or extracted from the wood. "(f) Destructively distilled wood turpentine' means wood turpentine obtained in the destructive distillation of the wood. "(g) Rosin' includes gum rosin and wood rosin. "(h) Gum rosin' means rosin remaining after the distillation of gum spirits of turpentine. 66 (i) 'Wood rosin' means rosin remaining after the distillation of steam distilled wood turpentine." The Capper-Volstead Act, to which the Agricultural Marketing Act refers for its definition of the "cooperative associations," limits the permitted association to persons engaged in the production of "agricultural products" as "farmers, planters, ranchmen, dairymen, nut or fruit growers." None of these categories, in the common and ordinary meaning of the terms used, would seem to include producers of spirits of turpentine and rosin. The authority of the Board to make loans is further limited by section 7 (b) of the Agricultural Marketing Act to those "in furtherance of the policy declared in section 1," which, so far as here pertinent, is to promote the marketing of "agricultural commodities and their food products." The authority conferred by the second sentence of section 15 (a) of that Act is also confined to loans to producers of "any agricultural commodity." The Agricultural Marketing Act contains no express definition of the term "agricultural commodities." Webster defines "agriculture" as "the science that treats of the cultivation of the soil"; also, "the cultivation of the soil for food products, or any other useful or valuable growths of the field or garden." A broader definition, but one excluding naval stores, appears in section 1 of the Cooperative Marketing Act (Act of July 2, 1926, 44 Stat. 802), as follows: "When used in this Act, the term 'agricultural products means agricultural, horticultural, viticultural, and dairy products, livestock and the products thereof, the products of poultry and bee raising, the edible products of forestry, and any and all products raised or produced on farms and processed or manufactured products thereof, transported or intended to be transported in interstate and/or foreign commerce." The expression "edible products of forestry" manifestly excludes turpentine and rosin. As the Act passed the House it included "naval stores" in the definition of agricultural products. The words "naval stores" were stricken from the definition by the Senate after extended debate, and in this amendment the House later concurred. (Cong. Rec. Vol. 67, pp. 11448-11454, 11616-11620, 12454.) The definition of "agricultural products " thus enacted in a statute in pari materia with, and antedating by only three years, the Agricultural Marketing Act is strong evidence of the intention of Congress with respect to the meaning of the term "agricultural commodities" in the latter. Furthermore, the definition of naval stores in the Naval Stores Act includes not only the natural products of living trees, but also "steam distilled" and "destructively distilled" wood turpentine and wood rosin, which are industrial products and could by no proper interpretation be included in the expression "agricultural commodities." I am of the opinion, therefore, that the answer to this question must be in the negative. Respectfully, WILLIAM D. MITCHELL. To the PRESIDENT. ESTABLISHMENT OF BRANCH BANKS BY NATIONAL BANK- The Comptroller of the Currency is without authority to grant an establishment of branches by State banks, and as by subsection (c) of section 7 of the Act of February 25, 1927 (44 Stat. 1228), national banking associations are permitted to establish and operate branches only, "if such establishment and operation are at the time permitted to State banks by the law of the State in question." The application of the national banking association of Georgia to establish a branch within a city having a population of less than 80,000 must be denied, since the laws of Georgia do not permit the establishment of branches by State banks in cities having a poulation of less than 80,000, and as by subsection (c) of section 7 of the Act of February 25, 1927, supra, national banking associations are permitted to establish branches only where "State banks by the law of the State in question" are permitted to establish branches. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, August 13, 1930. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter of July 17, 1930, stating that the Comptroller of the Currency has pending before him the following applications for permission to establish branches by national banking associations: "(1) An application for the consolidation of a State and national bank under charter of the national bank, in accordance with the provisions of section 3 of the Act of Feb. ruary 25, 1927, and in connection with such consolidation an application for the operation of a branch in the main office of the State bank as a branch of the consolidated bank. The town in which the two banks are located has in excess of 25,000 population according to the last decennial census and the State is the State of Pennsylvania; "(2) An application from a national bank located in the State of Georgia in a city with more than 50,000 population for the establishment of a branch of a national bank in such city." My opinion is requested regarding the Comptroller's authority to grant the applications for the establishment of the branches above indicated. The law permitting the establishment of branch banks by national banking associations, under certain conditions, is contained in the Act approved February 25, 1927, c. 191, sec. 7, 44 Stat. 1224, 1228, which amends section 5155 of the Revised Statutes of the United States to read as follows: "SEC. 5155. The conditions upon which a national banking association may retain or establish and operate a branch or branches are the following: "(a) A national banking association may retain and operate such branch or branches as it may have in lawful operation at the date of the approval of this Act, and any national banking association which has continuously maintained and operated not more than one branch for a period of more than twenty-five years immediately preceding the approval of this Act may continue to maintain and operate such branch. "(b) If a State bank is hereafter converted into or consolidated with a national banking association, or if two or more national banking associations are consolidated, such converted or consolidated association may, with respect to any of such banks, retain and operate any of their branches which may have been in lawful operation by any bank at the date of the approval of the Act. “(c) A national banking association may, after the date of the approval of this Act, establish and operate new branches within the limits of the city, town, or village in which said association is situated if such establishment and operation are at the time permitted to State banks by the law of the State in question. "(d) No branch shall be established after the date of the approval of this Act within the limits of any city, town, or village of which the population by the last decennial census was less than twenty-five thousand. No more than one such branch may be thus established where the population so determined, of such municipal unit does not exceed fifty thousand; and not more than two such branches where the population does not exceed one hundred thousand. In any such municipal unit where the population exceeds one hundred thousand the determination of the number of branches shall be within the discretion of the Comptroller of the Currency. "(e) No branch of any national banking association shall be established or moved from one location to another without first obtaining the consent and approval of the Comptroller of the Currency. "(f) The term 'branch' as used in this section shall be held to include any branch bank, branch office, branch |