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Show nfLivestoclc War clouds are darkening the horizon, hor-izon, as newspaper writers say. This can mean nothing tiut an increase in the price of foodstuffs. Grains are leading the advance and doubtless the effect will be felt all along the food commodity line. Steel mills are running full shifts and creating payrolls pay-rolls and in turn the workers buy meat, as the big outlet for meat is among workers. Reporfs have it that foreign nations are heavy buyers of canned goods; probably a lot of South American corned beef. The in-! flux of canned beef into our country, compared to our total consumption, is not great, but every pound of for- j might go back to Biblical days, when in Egypt a wise king who was faced j with over-agricultural production, ap- pointed a secretary of agriculture who built granaries and stored the grain and when the drouth and shortage short-age came, all the nations of Europe came to purchase supplies, making Egypt the richest nation in those days. J Probably none of us understand the governing force which makes the law of compensation effective, but we do know there is such a natural law which solves our surplus problems prob-lems and by the same token penalizes those who interfere with the laws of eign meat diverted from our shores strengthens our market just that much. It is not likely that with our present pres-ent 'pork deficiency we will have a diversion di-version of United States pork to foreign for-eign countries as they could not pay the price in competition with foreign buyers. Our beef supply has been heavily curtailed and while there is sufficient for our domestic needs, we have no surplus to sell. War rumors have had some effect in increasing the price of wool, which has contributed contri-buted to the benefit of the industry, and lambs have shown a stronger price trend, probably the result of the high price of pork products. Personally, I have always been in favor of all the production of good quality meat food animals that is possible. We have had some bitter lessons in what forced decreases mean in production of foodstuffs. We nature by curtailing the production of food when it may be created. I never could see why food should not be produced when the opportunity is presented. Noah had the same idea, and, acting by some sort of guidance, saved livestock for the benefit of posterity, pos-terity, without which today we could ' have no agricultural structure be-j be-j cause our flocks and herds are the j basis upon which our agriculture is built. None of us wish to use the war as I a vehicle upon which to ride to pros-I pros-I perity, but if it must, come in Europe it would seem that we are in position to sell to the warring nations and as jwe are primarily interested in livestock, live-stock, it should mean that we will pee some rising livestock markets and with increasing production it . will mean prosperity to western livestock production which has been so sadly lackinor in the past few years. |