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Show jgSituationJ jjggsb : realized is many times the difference between profitable and unprofitable operation;!. Ve have found throughout this depression de-pression that the farmer who had a diversified set-up with livestock and ! particularly hogs, has been able to I supply himself with the necessities of ! life and to market the surplus for leash; and while we are talking about : the hog industry, let's not overlook the fact that livestock is the one asset that has kept the farmer going because be-cause it 13 so easily convertible into cash. One of my friends was recently called upon by the bank to cut down his line. The farmer exhibited to the : banker what collaterals he had, including in-cluding some hogs that were about ready for market. It didn't take the banker long to put his finger on that item. The time is at hand for the farmer to fortify himself by taking I advantage of present low prices to I build up a breeding herd, and while I as we have already found, price levels are extremely low, jks must keep in ifiiin( that l.-ibor and supplies are also ' lew; and while not sufficiently low to offset the decreased price of hogs, yet the farmer who selects good breeding stuff and gots himself in shape for the future has an excellent opportunity of going forward on a profitable basis; but the hog business is just like any other business ir. and outers never succeed. The main thing about any line of production is to have a market where relative values may be had with every opportunity to get a direct reflection re-flection of supply and demand by honest and business-like methods. The only way to make a market is to have a steady flow of supplies. The buying element is here. The fellow who sells direct is simply spreading the purchasing pur-chasing power to the detriment of the growers. This is the time for men of foresight and intestinal fortitude to avail themselves of a real opportunity opportun-ity to provide for a foundation for the future and one as a steady business offering the greatest assurance of successful operation, calculated to avo;d a repetition of what many are going through now. Pork consumption in Southern California Cali-fornia shows a substantial increase over any previous period, the slaughter slaugh-ter for the month of April indicating a gain of 23,672 head over the same period last year. The yearly slaughter for 1931 shows an increase over any previous period of 80,882. In spite of price conditions, there is an element of optimism in the future of the hog industry, founded on the idea that when values are on an extremely low basis, the time is at hand to go into the business. There is every reason in the light of past history and with confidence in the future to believe that the pork industry will carry on. There are certain cer-tain influences connected with hog marketing that are not beneficial to , the grower, and it is only a matter of time until that situation will have been remedied. Only a few .years back we were Finding our barley abroad and we have almost completely ignored the importance of building up an outlet for our grain by conversion into pork and other lines of meat food. We are now in the position where that policy is compulsory, as wo all know what the foreign situation is. Every civilized civiliz-ed nation raises barley. Under our standards of living we cannot hope to compfte with many of these nations, but. wo can hope to build up an outlet through the medium of livestock at least sufficient to supply our needs for meat food. The importatio'n into the state of hogs and pork products is an enormous enor-mous item running into many millions of dollars. It would be helpful if the people of this section could take advantage ad-vantage of the marketing opportunity that is keeping the eastern farmer going. There is no reason why we should pay tribute to the farmers east of the Rocky mountains in order lo 'vget a thing that we are so amply able, to- produce, and even at the low prices of hogs there is some advantage by converting our grain into pork. There may be times in the future when the l grain will offer a higher price, but we should start now to build up at least a secondary if not a primary use j of our grain in livestock fattening so ' as to have an optional marketing medium. In the middle west we are informed inform-ed that 85 per cent of the corn crop is converted into meat food. Without hogs, neither the farms nor the product pro-duct would be worth much. Barley is a splendid substitute for corn. Seemingly, Seem-ingly, we should get down to the same system of farming with hogs as an essential part of the operation not only as an added outlet for our grain but there is a great deal of wasts around the farm that can be salvaged through hogs, and the saving thus i |