NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT:  On this day in 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Agricultural Adjustment Act into law.  Under it, farmers could be paid subsides for not cultivating their land.  The Supreme Court found part of the scheme unconstitutional in 1936, but the Act was cleaned up and repromulgated in 1938 with most of the same features.

My Uncle Paul was an expert in pineapple cultivation and spent his professional career in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Kenya putting that knowledge to good use, before retiring to his native Maine (which is not exactly pineapple country).  When I practiced law in Washington, he used to tease me that I needed to get him a sweet deal with the Department of Agriculture under which he would agree not to grow pineapples in Maine in return for a nifty bundle of cash.  We laughed.  But, upon reflection, I can’t state with certainty that he would not have been entitled to it.