The inclusion of incidental practices in the definition of
agriculture was not intended to include typical factory workers or
industrial operations, and the sponsors of the bill made it clear that
the erection and operation on a farm by a farmer of a factory, even one
using raw materials which he grows, ``would not make the manufacturing *
* * a farming operation'' (see 81 Cong. Rec. 7658; Maneja v. Waialua,
349 U.S. 254). Accordingly, in determining whether a given practice is
performed ``as an incident to or in conjunction with'' farming
operations under the intended meaning of section 3(f), the nature of the
practice and the circumstances under which it is performed must be
considered in the light of the common understanding of what is
agricultural and what is not, or the facts indicating whether
performance of the practice is in competition with agricultural or with
industrial operations, and of the extent to which such a practice is
ordinarily performed by farmers incidentally to their farming operations
(see Bowie v. Gonzales, 117 F. 2d 11; Calaf v. Gonzalez, 127 F. 2d 934;
Vives v. Seralles, 145 F. 2d 552; Mitchell v. Hunt, 263 F. 2d 913;
Holtville Alfalfa Mills v. Wyatt, 230 F. 2d 398; Mitchell v. Budd, 350
U.S. 473; Maneja v. Waialua, supra). Such an inquiry would appear to
have a direct bearing on whether a practice is an ``established'' part
of agriculture. The fact that farmers raising a commodity on which a
given practice is performed do not ordinarily perform such a practice
has been considered a significant indication that the practice is not
``agriculture'' within the secondary meaning of section 3(f) (Mitchell
v. Budd, supra; Maneja v. Waialua, supra). The test to be applied is not
the proportion of those performing the practice who produce the
commodities on which it is performed but the proportion of those
producing such commodities who perform the practice (Maneja v. Waialua,
supra). In Mitchell v. Budd, supra, the U.S. Supreme Court found that
the following two factors tipped the scales so as to take the employees
of tobacco bulking plants outside the scope of agriculture: Tobacco
farmers do not ordinarily perform the bulking operation; and, the
bulking operation is a process which changes tobacco leaf in many ways
and turns it into an industrial product.
