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Show LIVESTOCK NOTES Los Angeles, California, June ' 22, 1936 The hog situation continues con-tinues to be of considerable Interest Inter-est as we watch the increase in production. I have before me a chart showing the hog population in the United States since 1900. This chart shows approximately 50 million hogs on the farms in 1900 and this figure fluctuated from year to year with a constant upward trend until the number reached 70 million in 1923. After that peals was reached the trend was downward until the bottom was reached in 1935 when there were less than 40 million hogs on the farms. Beginning with that low figure there is an expansion indicated and some observers predict pre-dict that there will be 50 million hogs on farms by the first of the year, reaching the 1900 total. The number of hogs shown at the beginning be-ginning of this year is the smallest small-est in more than fifty years. It is interesting to note that while California slaughtered over a million hogs In 1935 that the last census shows less than one-half million hogs on farms so there is no doubt that California will be a heavy importer of hogs for some time. California has been drawing hog supplies from practically every state west of the Missouri river and, of course, there is a possibility with the curtailed hog production in the corn belt states that the production of hogs may be increased on the Pacific coast. The heaviest decline in the number of hogs on the farm was registered in the corn belt where the number dropped from 41 million mil-lion to 25 million. Of course the contraction and expansion of hog production can be accomplished quickly and it may be that if drouth conditions do not influence the increase in the production that the corn belt states will bring their hog population up rapidly. A factor that is likely to have an important influence upon the general gen-eral livestock situation is reported drouth in several livestock breeding breed-ing sections. Of course, no one may predict how serious these drouths may become. Should they reach the magnitude of the drouth of 1935 there would be many changes in the livestock picture. It is reported at this time that some sections are seriously affected. We are pointing to the increase in hog population as every class of livestock is closely inter-related and shifting about in numbers of any particular class naturally affects af-fects the other groups whether it is cattle, hogs or sheep. While figures indicate decreases in livestock population, federal slaughter figures show increases for the month of May in all departments de-partments over May of 1935. In May, 1936, 786,000 cattle were slaughtered, which is the largest May cattle slaughter with one exception ex-ception since 1931. 502,000 calves were slaughtered which is the largest calf slaughter with one exception ex-ception in the past six years. The sheep and lamb slaughter was about normal with a slaughter of 1,213,000 and the national hog slaughter was increased from 2,-172,000 2,-172,000 in May 1935 to 2,579,000 in May, 1936. |