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Show LIVESTOCK SITUATION Alfalfa continues to be by far tin most important and most valuable field crop in most of the. western States. In California, the alfalfa crop brings ill more money each year i all of the d. ei.luous fruits Combined, Com-bined, excepting grapes. Despite tin fact that ther has been n very hirer increase- in the acreage given over in ilfalfa, prevailing prices fail to indicate indi-cate i.ny tendecy towards overproduction. overproduc-tion. As a matter of fact, there has been a decided shortage of alfalfa during the past two yearn. The rea son for the continued broad and ever increasing demand is very evident. lu'. e.iiy has there been a steady increase in t!v rumbor of dairy cows in M'-st of the western States, particularly par-ticularly in California and the In-termountain In-termountain country, but there ha; beea a tremendous swing towards Iry'ot feeding of beef cattle. Drouth :or.!itions also have caused beef cat-t!rrr",n cat-t!rrr",n to buy more alfalfa hay than would normnllly have occured. There .eoms to be every reason to encourage ilfa'fi hay production on land suitable suit-able for Its production as any increase in beef cattlo feeding must be dependent de-pendent upon an abundant supply of alfalfa hay. Southwestern cattlemen have Kph-n did feed condtions this season and, were it not for the fact that money conditions are still rather tight, there would bo a disposition to hold caJwj and yearlings through the winter. Howevf r, most of the Southwestern cowmen would like to effect some sales of stockers and feeders and are offering these cattle at prices frcm one to one and one-half cents a pound cheaper than a year ago. To many cattle feeders, prevailing prio -s of stocker and feeder cattle are attractive at-tractive but because of shortage of feed or "tight" money conditions, demand de-mand is not expected to become very apparent for at least another thirty days, in the opinion of market observers. |