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Show not satisfied, with pevailing prices and are at present talking of holding back ' lambs in the hope that prices may advance. Should this sentiment be '.general, it might result in a serious ser-ious situation, as the lambs might become too heavy for general trade requirements. Because of improved breeding and better care of ewe during dur-ing the lambing and nursing season, California lambs even under normal conditions are often too heavy to meet the most exacting retail trade and a tendency to hold for better prices would more than likely result in extreme weight, a condition the industry should guard against. Prices of bides, wool, tallow and other by-products of cattle and sheep! are at the lowest levels within recent re-cent years and considerably below the pre-war average. With this condition confronting the meat packers, it is difficult to expect any immediate betterment, in livestock values unless general business conditions improve sufficiently to permit higher byproducts by-products prices. As it is, the packer must depend upon the sale of meat for both overhead and profit. This condition is responsible to a great degree for the failure of retail meat prices to fully reflect the declines which have taken place on livestock on the hoof. There has been rather sharp competition com-petition between feeder cattle buyers and packers for many of the good, fleshy cattle arriving on the Los Angeles An-geles market, with the result that half-fat cattle have sold at relatively high prices to persons who are placing plac-ing them in feed-lots. In the opinion of some members of the trade, feeder cattle have been selling at prices which appear to be dangerously high in view of the market for fat stock. What Cost of Pork. We must appreciate that the West is rapidly developing a great cosumer demand with requirements for daily supplies in big volume. Not many years back, the western states represented repre-sented pretty much cow and sheep range, but the cutting up of our great land areas has been going on consistently, consis-tently, for the purpose of increasing our food supplies. WTe must, from year to year, look to the smaller rancher for our needs through a diversified farm set-up. Our national per capita consumption of pork exceeds that of any other meat food. We need to produce this pork closer to home and the country needs the money. We feel that some progress is being be-ing made for increased pork production produc-tion in the western states but we are not making enough headway. Our farmers are complaining that the banks won't loan money on hogs as collateral. This isn't a new. story but an old one applied to a new hog raising country. The same thing took place in the middle western states until bankers became more familiar with the value of the hog as a part of the farm set-up, and furthermore, until immunization -had been developed develop-ed up to a point of reasonable safety. We find some of the bankers in the western states willing to recognize i "double treated" hogs as good collateral, col-lateral, appreciating that the hog stays on the place until it is finished, finish-ed, without the ability to wander very far, which is in itself an element of security; and furthermore, that the pig just farrowed will within nine months become a full-sized porker, thus liquidating the loan within a comparatively short time. i What we need now is to sell the idea to the local banker that hogs represent good security, adding substantial sub-stantial value to the farm and supplying sup-plying something for which there is a steady market and a great economic eco-nomic need. This won't come about all at once, but we need to keep working work-ing in that direction. . The banker wants to loan money and is looking for chances to do so in a way that will be most constructive construc-tive with reasonable elements of pro tection, so keep talking to him about it. Cooperation Required for Good Railroad Service. The railroads are speeding up the movement of freight trains assigned for the hauling of livestock, and they are trying to operate these fast freight trains on a fixed sahedule in and out of the loading stations, but one of their greatest troubles is the stock shipper who delays the train as well as all other shippers by failing to load on time as he has agreed to do. It is worthwhile for every . stock shipper to know that a certain train will put his stock on the central markets mar-kets at a fixed time and that it will leave the shipping plant at a certain time, but he must do his part by arranging ar-ranging in advance to have his cars ordered and loaded and billed so as to not delay the train at his station, because one delay may mean a consecutive con-secutive delay at every succeeding loading station and in arriving at the ' market. If the stockmen will confer with their local railroad agent and help the ' railroads to give them better service, , it will add dollars to the value of their stock by shortening their time on the cars and being on time to market. Abundant rainfall in the great sheep raising districts of central California Cal-ifornia assure stockmen of plenty of feed for this season. Rains have soaked into the soil and, accompanied by mild weather, range feed has madi splendid growth. Interest now centers in the California Calif-ornia lamb crop, which is marketed not. only on the Pacific Coast but as far east at the Atlantic seaboard, California lambs being the first in the country to mature. During the past few years, approximately 25 per cent of California's early lambs, or around 500,000 head, are shipped to Missouri River markets, or to the Atlantic seaboard under refrigeration after being slaughtered on the coast. While a few lambs already have moved to market, the actual volume ; movement is not expected to begin j until about March 15. Growers are |