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Show rpDvestocJcl ! " ' Announcement that another million I head of cattle will be purchased under the federal emergency drouth relief program is welcomed by hundreds of western cattlemen who are facing severe winter losses. At the same time, the huge reduction in beef cattle cat-tle numbers is again forcibly brought to the attention of the industry. It must be considered that in the drouth buying, the heaviest purchases were made in states where most of the cattle cat-tle are of the distinct beef breeds. It is possible that as many as 20 per cent of the more than eight million cattle purchased or to be bought by the federal government are of dairy breeds, leaving the balance primarily primar-ily beef type cattle. prove the quality of what strictly j beef cattle are left. The dairy types j will more than fulfill all market re- quirements for -low-grade beef. Itj seems up to the beef people to exert ' every effort to take their product en-1 tirely out of competition with the poor grade stock by supplying the quality beef that is in greatest demand by the consumer. I A possible solution to the question may come out of the suggestion of Doctor Mohler, chief of the U. S. bureau bu-reau of animal industry, who suggests sug-gests that in the future, beef may be graded and stamped for quality, and sold under breed name such as "choice Angus beef" or "prime Here- j ford beef," and so on. j Thus the reduction in beei cattle numbers becomes more pronounced than ever before. Government statis- tics, which may be considered fairly reliable, indicate that there were around 68,371,000 cattle in the United States in 1920, of which 36,726,000 were of beef type, or about 52 per cent. By January 1st 1933, the same authority states there were approximately approxi-mately 67,352,000 cattle in the same country, of which only 28,259,000, or 42 per cent, were beef cattle. Considering that the estimate of 80 per cent of 1934 drouth cattle purchased pur-chased were of beef type, largely range cattle, it would appear as though the present figures would show a still further greater relative decline in cattle of beef type. Everything Every-thing else being equal, it would indicate indi-cate that at present we have only 21,859,000 beef cattle, or 37 per cent j of the cattle in the United States. Of course, in the final analysis, practically all cattle go into beef channels, with the dairy grades supplying sup-plying the demands for the cheaper beef trade. The trouble is that we have always had too many of the low IJXAtXllWy CLlDSJ.lKJ.ia VVJZ TVl lAAi UliVV v-v-J. channels and not enough high quality beef. There is little that the industry can do about the present situation for j it is very probable that had not the government purchased the drouth cattle, cat-tle, most of these animals would have died of starvation or would have been forced onto the markets, further de-i de-i pressing prices on what went through the markets. But there is a lesson for the beef cattleman in the present set-up and I that is a general determination to im- |