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Show It is doubtful if theres ever has been a more optimistic feeling ih the catue situation generally than pre-j vails at this time. An actual shortage of cattle is claimed by some in the ' trade others are of the opinion that as a matter of fact, there are not enough en-ough cattle in the country to prove burdensome yet there may be nothing noth-ing about the situation to warrant extremely ex-tremely high prices or talk of anything any-thing :hat might be termed an extreme ex-treme beef shortage. During the war period when, both for patriotic reasons and under influence influ-ence of high prices, an oversupply was created, the crash which followed follow-ed as a result of a lower market ruined many good cattlemen and some "in and outers." Since that time and up until the past year or so, deflation defla-tion was in progress. Until 1926, most of the liquidation of cattle was forced because of financial pressure and because of lack of sufficient feed. Personally, it seems to me that in 192G and early in 1927, the movement of cattle to market had much the appearance ap-pearance of a clean-up of undesirable cattle. The result, at least, is that at the present time, western ranges are pretty well cleaned up of old, worn-out breeding stock and aged steers. The ranges are carrying barely bare-ly enough cattle" to produce enough young stock to move readily at the markets, .and the .ranges are reseed-ing reseed-ing and better feed conditions are developing, de-veloping, aided by good rains. Right at this time, the cattle situation situa-tion as far as the western producer is concerned, is almost ideal. There is a ready market for everything that can be produced above actual replacement re-placement needs, perhaps not at high prices but certainly at satisfactory and profitable prices. " September receipts at the 67 public markets in the U. S. as shown by the department of agriculture, are 17 per cent fewer, than for the 5-year average. aver-age. Likewise, the slaughter of cattle at those points is 16 percent smaller than a year ago and 10 percent smaller small-er than for the 5-year average. Stocker and. feeder .movements to the country ho'w a decline of 22 percent from a year ago and a 27 percent decrease de-crease from the 5-year average. Despite these figures for the country coun-try .'"as al; whole; it lis' interesting to note that the slaughter of cattle at Los . Angeles,! the principal packing center of the Pacific Coast, are actually actu-ally larger than a year previous. For the first nine months of 1927, the I.os Angeles slaughter of cattle totaled total-ed 22s,9.jo cattle, as compared with 222.1U0 cattle during the corresponding correspond-ing period of 1926. i-'roi.i these contrasting figures, the principal lesson which might be gathered is that the consumer demand on the Pacific Co.ist Is steadily increasing. in-creasing. In the fact of admittedly smaller car.lo population in the country coun-try as a whole, the cattle: population in California fails to show a proportionate pro-portionate decrease, a slight increase being noted, as a matter of fact Thus it may be gathered that supply and demand have a great deal to do with regulating the cattle . population There has been no pressing need of cutting down cattle supplies in California Cali-fornia because the human population has increased more rapidly than the cattle population. But the cattle population is now well balanced in ratio to the market requirements in most sections of the country. The best minds in the trade see no reason for any rapid expansion expan-sion of the cattle supply but rather feel that the natural output of beef breeding herds will provide all necessary neces-sary requirements and at satisfactory profits to industry. |
