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Show rate high hay prices during the winter wint-er season. There will be about 800,000 fewer cattle marketed from (he seventeen western states west of the Mississippi Missis-sippi river during the period from August to December of (his year a3 compared to the same time in 1926, and the reduction is expected to amount to about 125,000 fewer than last year. These figures are estimates esti-mates released by the United States department of agriculture and include in-clude cattle going both' for immediate slaughter and into feeUlots. There has been but little "contracting" "con-tracting" of stocker and feeder cattle in the range states this year, ait least up to this writing. This is in sharp contrast with' last year, when both speculators and cattle feeders, had contracted nearly everything available avail-able prior to September 1st. Southwestern South-western cattlemen in some instances are reported to have sold stocker and feeder calves and yearlings at prices slightly lower than last' season's peak. Higher corn prices in the Middle Mid-dle West are likely to restrict demand de-mand for feeder cattle this season. It is also general knowledge that Com Belt feeders were not able to profitably profit-ably market their fat cattle last season sea-son and they are inclined to be wary of high prices now. Money continues bo be "tight" and interest rates generally gen-erally are higher than a year ago. The break in hog prices came earlier than usual this year. Missouri Missou-ri river markets declined a cent a poundi in one week's time, putting the market at Kansas City down to a 10-cent basis for top butcher hogs. Pacific Coasti meat distributors con. tinue to move a world of pork but, of course, prices on the Coast have declined de-clined 'in sympathy with the middle Western decline. Poor corn crop conditions con-ditions in most central states have caused earlier marketing of hogs than usual. Government reports indicate in-dicate no surplus of pork products or live hogs and those closely identified with. the trade believe that the winter "kill" of hogs will not be laid in at any lower prices than prevailed in the 1928-29 winter season. store, or the department store. The longer meat packers are watching these experiments with intense in. terest and of course, the retailers, particularly chain market owners, are preparing for the days of package pack-age meats. Manifestly, should it be possible to package all retail meat cuts, there should be some saving effected in the cost of distribution, a matter which should be of benefit to the stockman, and is another step towards standardization. The hay crop in most sections of the west is smaller than last year with a very light carryover of old hay. Last winter's severe weather conditions caused heavy feeding of hay in the northern country, and in California, lack of sufficient rainfall caused poor pasture conditions, necessitating the feeding of greater amounts of hay than normally. California Cali-fornia hay interests generally antici- rwfc Revolutionary changes apparently are taking place In the retail distribution distri-bution of meats. The latest wrinkle is the sale of beef, quickly frozen by a new process which has been used successfully by fish distributors for some time. Retail' cuts of meat are packaged in attractive containers, wrapped in cellophane (Transparent Wrapper), and offered the retail customer. cus-tomer. This method tends to eliminate elimi-nate the need for the retail meat cutter cut-ter of today land meats could be sold in such packages in the corner drug |