OCR Text |
Show rv ; . livestock: conditions improve not too encouraging. encourag-ing. So far as the Western states are concerned the number of cattle coming com-ing off of grass will be much less than a year ago, but with an increase from the ranges in the Southwest. Range conditions are spotted, with some sections suffering badly from drouth conditions and this not only means a decreased number of fat cattle cat-tle but that the thin cattle coming from such areas will go into feed lots and to this extent the movement of feeders from normal sources will be affected. There has not been a sufficient increase in-crease in price on the Middle Western market to turn eastward the cattle from Colorado and Wyoming feed lots, evidenced by $8.75 top with bulk sales of fed steers ranging from $7.00 to $8.00 on the Chicago market as against $7.50 to $8.65 on the Los Angeles An-geles market. Undoubtedly, the bullish bull-ish attitude of certain packing inter-asts, inter-asts, as reflected through trade channels chan-nels during the past two weeks, has had a stimulating effect, adding a very much needed support to a badly sagging price situation. The general feeling among the livestock growers is that price fluctuations fluc-tuations are governed by supply and demand and as a rule they are willing to take their losses or gains as a im:tter of course not too exuberant when profits are high and not too depressed when profits are low, depending de-pending upon the general average which after all is the way that all business goes. In the present depressed state of v livestock values there is one redeeming redeem-ing feature and that is where lower Si price levels are reflected all through the industry the public at least gets the benefit with a tendency to popularize popu-larize meat foods. A recent release of the United States Department of Agriculture indicates in-dicates that the retail prices in New York and Chicago, our two largest cities, substantially reflect the lower j. rice of the meat on the hoof. This same release places the reduction of 1 ve prices compared with a year ago as follows: Cattle, 35 per cent; hogs, -lit per cent; lambs, 13 per cent. The meat food business has stood the test of all depressions and still goes on; as a matter of fact it must go on, because of the importance of meat food as a national ration, and even though there is a decreased supply sup-ply of cattle and hogs, we must remember re-member that there is an offsetting decreased purchasing power. This fact, connected with the low prices of all food stuff is sufficient to depress de-press livestock and meat food values. Cattle prices on the eastern markets have within the past ten days showr an upward tendency with a gain of about one dollar per hundredweight all of which is encouraging and decidedly de-cidedly helpful to the growers throughout the country. The best opinion is that the situation situa-tion does not justify too much optimism optim-ism in relation to further advances, but it is hoped that we can hold the gain without slipping back to the lower price levels. So far as supplies are concerned this view is justified but again we are right back to the question of demand and there will be1 no great improvement improve-ment in that respect until industrial |