GRAPEVINE

By DAVID ELLIS

What do you give the farmer who has everything? How about a copy of the Lawyer's Guide to Payment Limitations, a $20 book for farmers (and their financial advisers) who want to bone up on ways to skirt the law that limited agricultural subsidies to $250,000 a person. A brochure for the 195-page opus boasts that it "contains annotated text, checklists, and sample pleadings" to help haymakers boost their government-supported income.

The guidebook was published by the University of Arkansas' National Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information, a distinguished institution, to be sure. In fact, it receives nearly all its funding -- more than $1.8 million since 1988 -- from guess who. Yup, the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart