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Show Los Angeles, June 10, 1940 There is a growing tendency on grain farms in the western country coun-try to utilize livestock as a means of harvesting1 . and marketing crops. This system not only usually usu-ally means a better price for crops on the farm, but is especially especi-ally important as a means of building up soil fertility. . Incidentally, Inci-dentally, this matter of maintaining maintain-ing or improving soil fertility is a matter which must be given more serious thought by western farmers, who cannot continue to expect the soil to indefinitely produce pro-duce abundant crops without restoring re-storing the fertility of the soil. There is no better all round fertilizer fer-tilizer and soil enricher than livestock live-stock manure. One outstanding example of marketing farm crops through livestock was had a few days ago at the Los Angeles Union Stock yards. Joe Remondini, who farms near Deming, New Mexico, sold a shipment of choice steers at $10.50 a cwt., the highest price paid on the market this year for a full carload of stock. Mr. Remondini Re-mondini carries his cattle on rye pasture, supplemented by cottonseed cotton-seed meal and hegari; then puts his cattle in dry lot for the final feeding period, using mainly crops grown on his own land, supplemented supple-mented by high protein feeds. In California this season, barley bar-ley growers are faced with a low market price for their crops, and at the same time, higher than usual harvesting and sacking costs. Bags this season are the highest in several years, due to the war demand for sand bags. After taking out the cost of bags and harvesting expenses, it may be seen that the grower who is getting only 60c to 70c a cwt. for his barley has little left to pay for the use of 'the land, seed, labor, taxes and other expenses. To answer this situation, some of the larger barley growers are resorting re-sorting to bulk storage in metal tanks. One large grower is putting put-ting 20,000 sacks of barley in metal storage tanks in bulk and will market the crop by feeding hogs. The cattle market continues to carry a strong undertone, especially especi-ally on good quality steers, which are scarce. There is a substantial substan-tial decrease in the number of steers now on dry feed in southern south-ern California. This probably will mean the importation of fed steers from more distant points during the next 60 to 90 days. Choice steers are selling up to S10.50 to $10.75, medium to good steers from $9 to $10 a cwt. Range cows are quoted at $5.60 to $6.50, a few good, young cows up to $6.75 to $7. Veal calves are in very active demand at $10 to $12 a cwt. The hog market is weak due to burdensome supplies. Medium to good grain-fed hogs are quoted at $6 to $6.35 a cwt. The lamb market mar-ket holds steady with good to choice, full-wooled lambs quoted at S9 to $9.75 a cwt. |