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Show . Los Angeles Union Stock Yards, November 14 All indications point to smaller supplies of beef cattle available for California markets during the next few months, and possibly for the spring and summer of 1939. Due to the broad demand for stocker and feeder cattle in the middle west this fall, many range cattle which ordinarily are purchased fcr west coast replacements have gone eastward. One of the leading lead-ing authorities in California estimates esti-mates that California ranges and feedlots will winter the smallest number of cattle in many years. - Fat cattle markets have been unsatisfactory to . feeders and range operators during most of 1938. This is the direct reason for lack of enthusiasm on the part of Californians in buying replacement replace-ment cattle. It is likely that California Cali-fornia feedlots, including Imperial valley grazing pastures, will not carry more than 50 to 60 percent as many cattle as in the winter of 1937-38. At the present time, feedlots are being emptied on a seasonal basis, but due to unsatisfactory unsatis-factory margins over feeder cattle cat-tle costs, replacement's are not by any means sufficient to take care of numbers being marketed. The United States department of agriculture is authority for the prediction that the country as a whole will have fewer fat cattle for markets in 1938 than in 1938, and it is a practical certainty that the west coast will have considerably consider-ably fewer cattle flcr slaughter. Thus there appears to be grounds for sound optimism as to the price structure, although of course the general trend of business conditions condi-tions will have an important bearing bear-ing on livestock prices. Hog prices continue to hold up well, indicating a broad demand for pork at prevailing prices. It is indicated that numbers of lambs now on feed are not large enough to be burdensome, and there is some strength in the lamb market with the result that the present price levels are the highest since last April. Government forecasts are for another increase in lamb supplies in 1939, with indications that the total lamb slaughter for 1938 may prove to be the largest on record. |