OCR Text |
Show Livestock gjXM' CHTTOVa ' Figures recently published indicate that the total number of cattle slaughtered slaugh-tered under Federal supervision at the principal markets show a decrease de-crease of 400,000 head for the first five months of this year' compared with last year. This means a decrease de-crease of about 200,000,000 pounds of beef or a per capita decrease in consumption con-sumption of about two pounds. In the face of this national decrease the Los Anjreles slaughter of cattle for May broke all previous May records, and the slaughter for the year to date is substantially more than preceding years. This situation is most significant from the standpoint of the Western producer as in years gone by his only outlet was at the Middle Western and Eastern markets, but with the phen-ominal phen-ominal development of consumer demand de-mand on tha Pacific coast, he en joys a choice of markets. If the Eastern markets do not look favorable favor-able he may ship to the coast. Another feature in the progress being made in the West toward stabilizing the cattle situation is that from a few years ago, when the West was largely a producer of feeders to he finished out in the corn belt for Eastern consumption, the situation has changed until the West is finish feeding many of its calves and feeders feed-ers to supply the Western demand. It has not been so long ago that feed- j ers from as far West as the Pacific I coast moved to the corn belt for finishing and in many cases dressed beef has been shipped back to supply the coast demand, this practice representing, rep-resenting, of course, an unsound situation situa-tion from an economical standpoint. With the tendency in the West toward to-ward finish feeding of live stock to supply the Western demand, the com belt is confronted with the problem of finding a new territory from which to draw its supply of feeders and many observers are now advocating the corn belt raising its own calves, predicting it is only a question of little time until the supply of calves in the West and Pacific Southwest will be utilized entirely for Western feeding operations to supply the Western consumer demand. In summing up it would appear to be a most healthy situation from the standpoint of the producer in having the Pacific coast market outlet available avail-able to him, with the figures showing show-ing as they do the utilization of a constantly increasing number of cattle cat-tle in the face of a decline in slaughter slaugh-ter figures nationally, such as is recorded re-corded above. |