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Show iJLjvestoclcl.. kSituatioaJ Float bus siTiciiiMly iliiniiiKi'il , tit til fruit crojiH in Ciilifoniiu. llow-ovit llow-ovit oxcept in oiisos wln-re iiulivklu-als iiulivklu-als lost jirai'ticiilly their entire clop, the .situiition is not iilurmiiiKi 11S iimiiy of these di'ciiluous fruit crnii.i have suffered from ovei pioduetioii for the pas three yearn. It seems that Nature's own way of cutting down overproduction. It is jforieinlly the case that a smaller crop means higher prices und possibly the total amount of money received for these crops thin season will not be so much smaller than in years past when we had more than ttho market would take, resulting in n very low price on what went to market and wasting wast-ing the surplus. This is an important import-ant fact to consider by those who depend upon the California market. Xo doubt the actual damage has been exasperated but even so, there is no substantial impairment of California's Califor-nia's purchasing power. j Arizona will ship fewer cattle I this season than in many years past, according to present estimates. Moreover, More-over, breeding stock now seems to be in the hands of those financially able and willing to rebuild the cattle cat-tle business. It is estimated that she-stock she-stock will make up only a very small part of the sfote's shipments of cattle, while in 1927, 2C percent of the shipments consisted of sows and heifers. The spring movement of cattle out of the entire southwest is estimated at 10 percent less than last year. The lamb market is not as firm at this writing as earlier in the season, sea-son, although the early California lambs are still selling nt prices very attractive to producers, and relatively relative-ly high in comparison with hugs and cattle. The present weakness in the lamb market is attributed by many in the trade to the fact that so many unfinished and half-fat lambs are going go-ing to meat distributors, due to the unfavorable spring feed conditions in most of the lamb producing sections sec-tions of California. Off-quality products pro-ducts always tend to hinder consumption consump-tion and the public will not pay relatively rela-tively high prices for meats of common com-mon and plain quality. It has been pointed out by leaders in the California sheep business that ranges are over-stocked. That such is the case in a relatively dry year seems to be proven this year, as ranges have been cropped closely, with the result that the quality of feed has been impaired by dumping undesirable lambs on the markets. The Inter-mountain country, as well as most parts of Arizona and severe winter. Sheepmen particular-severe particular-severe winter. Sheepment particularly particular-ly have had a hard season, due in the northern country to an unusually severe winter and shortage of hay, and in the Southwest, shortage of both feed and water. In Utah newly born lambs suffered seriously from a heavy April snow storm. These factors indicate that the fall markets will not have the normal number of range lambs and it would appear that pasturing and dry feeding of the thin California lambs might be worthy of consideration, as indications indica-tions are that there 'will be something some-thing of a shortage of fat lambs next fall, when the fed California lambs would ordinarily be marketed. It appears that a larger proportion propor-tion of Southwestern cattle out of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona-will Arizona-will be pastured in the rich grazing sections of the Flint hills of Kansas and Osage pastures of Oklahoma. With pasture conditions reported excellent, ex-cellent, most of the land has been leased for Southwestern cattle at prices 50 cents an acre higher than in 1928. The fact that more cattle than normal will be pastured in these sections does not necessarily mean that there will be more Southwestern Southwest-ern cattle to move but instead, reflects re-flects the drought conditions so general gen-eral over most of the Southwestern country. In most cases, it is reported that cattle owners are pasturing their own cattle because of inability to fatten them out on home ranges.' |