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Show jLivestoclel Los Angeles Union Stock Yards, September 18 Livestock prices have been maintained on a firm basis' since the advance in prices vhich followed the ouitbraak of the war in Europe. Cattle and' lamb prices advances were not unexpected, un-expected, in view of the rather depressed de-pressed condition of the markets earlier in the summer, and a relative rela-tive deficiency in fat cattle and' lambs brought on by extremely dry weather in most parts of the west-em west-em range country. There was no surplus of cattle or lamlbs in sight and prices appeared to be on the upgrade without benefit of any increased in-creased demand brought on by war conditions. The situation in the hog market is much different. Hog prices were extremely low in August, and! averaged ave-raged about three cents a pound below 1914 -levels. Hog producers were receiving prices considerably below their costs of production, and every indication pointed toward to-ward disastrously low hog prices during the fall and winter, due to greatly increased! supplies of hogs in the middle west. War conditions condi-tions have changed America into an exporting country, which accounts ac-counts for a greatly improved pork and! lard market. With Poland Po-land now unaible to export pork products to the British Isles, the British have dropped! quotas and are encouraging United! States pork and lard imports. While there may be some talk of profiteering, and some actual examples of relatively high food prices, certainly meats do not come under such classification, for livestock prices generally are relatively rela-tively low in comparison with prices of 25 years ago, previous to the first wcTld war. Livestock feeders and range men are anxiously studying the trend of the livestock feedstuff markets. They feel that some livestock feeds have advanced to an unreasonable extent, which is adding to the cost of producing meat and milk. Yet official govwnment reports indicate indi-cate a plentiful supply of most livestock feeds in the country. Cottonseed cake and meal is the one exception, with supplies for domestic utilization this fall esti- mated at 1,924,700 tons, or 345,000 ' tons below the supply a year ago. Supplies of grains of all kinds are in excess of a year ago, and no shortage of grain is anticipated' in j this country. I '. |