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Show LIVESTOCK NOTES Los Angeles, California, March 30, 1936 A recent report shows that the north Atlantic group of stats, which includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Con-necticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania, produce pro-duce only one twenty-fifth of the nation's meat supply. This group of states consume one-third of the total meat supply of the United States. The production pro-duction of meat food animals has moved westward constantly. Eighty Eigh-ty years ago New York led all states in beef production and Ohio was first in the production of lamb and mutton. The center of' finished beef produced is now in the corn belt but of course a great deal of these animals come from the western states. At this time Ilexas leads in number of sheep, followed by California and Montana. Mon-tana. At this time around 80 million mil-lion head of cattle, hogs and sheep are required to furnish meat food supplies for the United States annually. an-nually. In 1935 out of 45,451,000 sheep shorn, 31,204,000 were shorn in thirteen states designated as "Western " states by the department depart-ment of agriculture. Of the total United States wool clip of 363,-145,000 363,-145,000 pounds, 260,118,000 pounds came from these thirteen states. Texas ranked first, California second and Montana third in the number of sheep reported shorn. The number of pounds of wool shorn in 1935 was the largest since 1920 with the exception of The farm census reports that January 1st, .this year, there were 2,511,000 hogs on farms (including (includ-ing pigs), which is the smallest number reported since 1920 with the exeption of 1935, when there were 39,100,000 recorded. The estimated farm value per head was the highest since 1930. The decrease in corn acreage naturally is the dominating factor fac-tor in the production and marketing market-ing of hoes. There is no question but that there will be an increase in ho? production from preliminary prelimi-nary reports but the limitation of corn production naturally serves as a barrier for hog production pointy beyond a certain point. It is interesting to note in the corn production program in the corn belt that last year four corn belt states reported a decrease of thir teen million acres of corn. Durin! the year there has been a marked i increase in corn production out- j side of the corn belt when twenty- 1 .six states reported a larger acr?-j age of corn in 1934 than in 1U2'.-'. and of the twelve principal cot- ton producing states all showed I increase in corn acreage with the ! exception of three states. There is a great deal of interest being exhibited in California toward to-ward increasing hog production and it would seem that up to a reasonable point that the increase of hog production in California would be practical and profitable when carried on by people equipped equip-ped to do so. There is a substantial substan-tial differential in hog prices in California over prices established upon the eastern markets and so long as California produces fewer hogs than required to meet local demands, of course this differential differen-tial would be maintained as it will be necessary to reach eastward for supplies to make up the deficiency. defi-ciency. It is unlikely that California Cali-fornia will ever become self-supporting in hog production but production pro-duction could be raised to a considerably con-siderably higher level with great profit to the state and to individual indivi-dual growers. |