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Show jlMJtvestocW 1 .There was 10,872,000,000 pounds of meat consumed in the United States last year. This is 373,000,000 pounds short of the year before, the lower consumption being attributed to the short beef supply. This doesn't indicate in-dicate a tendency on the part of the consuming public toward eating less meat as there was an advance of 352,000,000 pounds of pork consumed consum-ed as compared with the preceding year. It is anticipated that 1928 will show a substantial increase in lamb, mutton and pork per capita consumption consump-tion and possibly a decrease in beef due to continued short supplies. :A reaction has set in in the hog market accompanied by strengthening strengthen-ing prices in the fact of continued heavy marketings, bearing out predictions predic-tions earlier in the year. If the cattle market holds reasonably steady in-'' dications are that hog prices should be satisfactory for the next several mfonths. The cattle market has weak-: weak-: ened in the last few weeks, due large ly to lessened consumer demand resulting re-sulting from present price levels. This is a situation which is usually experienced experi-enced in any food stuff when it reaches a certain price level as the housewife, who is the purchasing agent of the Nation, is a good shopper shop-per when she thinks prices are more reasonable on one commodity than on another, she turns to that product. The corn situation has been helpful help-ful to live stock producers during the past year and the returns for corn were excellent for farmers who had corn of the right quality. The : present high prices of corn have, of J course, helped live stock prices. The i present high price of corn is likely j to result in a heavy acreage during j the coming season and if a good crop j is had' the price is likely to be low. i This will mean cheap feed for the corn belt feeder which can likely be turned into higher priced live stock and the heavy marketings of the past few months is likely to result in a strong understone on all classes of live stock for the balance of the year, even if cheap corn is available. This situation would, of course, put the feeders in a desirable position. In the past few -months it was estimated esti-mated that beef steers were 50 per cent higher . and lambs 40 per cent higher than a year ago but that hogs were 30 per cent lower. In the face of this the return to the hog raiser would not seem so satisfactory but I it is stated that in spite of this de-( de-( cline in prices the larger number of hogs marketed has to some extent offset the decline in the amount of money received by producers for their hog production and it is estimated that money received for hogs during the" year was less than 10 per cent smaller small-er than the preceding year. Hog supplies have been materially cut down by heavy marketing and it would appear that the hog producer was in a desirable position at least for the next several months. The consuming public should consider con-sider that while prices for beef may ttpp.-ar diat the prosperous condition of the country makes it possible to : a price that will give a satisfactorily satisfact-orily return to the producer. We should not forget that the industry is just recovering from the disastrous Post War liquidator days and it is going to take a reasonable period with such returns as the industry has now received to in a measure offset the losses incurred during that time and from an economic standpoint all branches of agriculture and industry are bound to benefit by the return of the cattle industry to a profitable basis. |