OCR Text |
Show Situation,! i Los Angeles, California, February Feb-ruary 25, 1935 There was some surprise in the livestock census figures issued February 15 by the department of agriculture. The report states that for three January Janu-ary 1st counts of cattle, January 1, 1935, showed that the supply was 88 per cent of the previous year while January 1, 1934, showed show-ed 103 per cent of the 1933 figures. This is a decrease, but not as much as the trade expected. The total on all cattle shows 60,667,000, as compared with 68,-290,000 68,-290,000 in 1934. In the face of this decrease in numbers, the valuation of all cattle ncreased from an average of $19.94 per head in 1933 to $21.07 in 1935. This shows a total valuation in 1935 of one bil- : : ' lion two hundred and seventy-eight seventy-eight million dollars as compared with one billion two hundred and forty seven million dollars in 1934. This report of the department of agriculture shows the first time on record of the department when there was a decrease in every line or species of livestock in the same year, but at the same time every line showed an increase in gross valuation over a year ago. These figures on the decrease in numbers of livestock dating back to 1890 are not just exactly as the figures would indicate, because breeding and feeding practices have changed. The volume of beef from a given number of cattle is larger than it was fifty years ago. When cattle were raised as strictly a range operation, and marketed ! as aged cattle, the turn-over was ' not as fast. Prime cattle now ! come to market weighing around a thousand pounds as yearlings, while in the "old days" heavy I cattle came in five and six years old. Naturally with better breeding breed-ing and feeding a given number of breeding cattle produce and market mar-ket probably twice the number of beeves as they did when the cattle business depended upon the elements ele-ments and volume in the number of head rather than upon concentrated concen-trated production of young animals, ani-mals, marketable in a year instead of several years. That is one of the reasons that the census of cattle should be gauged by the changing times and practices in beef production. While we are back to about a normal cattle population in the United States, we should consider that we are on a more highly specialized production basis, and sixty million cattle now in a five year period will market a lot more beef animals ani-mals than the same number of cattle cat-tle would have when the census figures were started in 1880. Another angle in the cattle census cen-sus is the declining percentage of beef cattle and the increasing percentage per-centage of dairy cattle going into beef channels. That doubtless is caused by the concentration of dairy cattle . in the metropolitan areas serving the centers of population popu-lation which have been created in the past generation. These cattle go for beef because they are used for milking so long as they last and then are turned into beef and replacement cows are brought in from the dairy cattle breeding sections. sec-tions. Before this practice was started, dairy cattle were scattered throughout the rural sections and calves were raised and the milk cow held for several years rather than a much shorter period in commercial milking requiring a high pressure production. The dairy cow is an important factor in the beef trade and as long as there are large metropoli- tan consuming centers she will continue to be a factor. This government census establishes the fact that there is not going to be a shortage of cattle. Most people in the trade are bullish on the cattle, hog and sheep market, but these latest censusj figures indicate plenty of meat food animals. There is a well sustained buying power on the part of the public in the retail re-tail meat trade and so long as that is maintained or improved there is an outlet for livestock at remunerative remuner-ative prices. I |