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Show Business Conditions In The Twelfth Federal Reserve Dist. Isacc B. Newton, Chairman of the Board and Federal Reserve Agent. Twelfth District business moved upward vigorously during April, accompanying ac-companying the nation-wide recovery recov-ery in activity. Increased activity not only made up for the decline of March but carried many seasonally adjusted production and trade indexes in-dexes to points higher than in February Feb-ruary of this year. Many commodities commodi-ties important in this district benefited bene-fited from the general rise in prices. There was considerable improvement in employment conditions and aggregate ag-gregate wage payments also increased increas-ed substantially. Low temperatures and less than tarded the progress of the 1933 agricultural agri-cultural season somewhat during April. Forage on lower livestock ranges was inadequate, necessitating more than the usual amount of supplemental sup-plemental feeding. Cattle remained in fair condition, however, but early lambs matured slowly. Although this bank's index of the value of agricultural agri-cultural products sold decreased further to a new low level during the first quarter of 1933, there was more than the usual increase in marketing activity in April, accompanied accom-panied by rising prices for farm products. Daily average output of both crude and refined oils increased during April, but changed little during the first half of May. Production remained re-mained considerably lower than in the corresponding period of 1932. Lumbering expanded more than seasonally during April, partly as a result of increased demand for building build-ing materials in southern California. Awards of contracts totaling 44 million mil-lion dollars for work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Metropolitan Water District of , southern California projects greatly increased the total value of engineering engi-neering construction. Mining activity activi-ty was stimulated by higher prices for non-ferrous metals. A sharp increase in the value of department store sales during April more than made up for the decline during March, after allowance for the ..stimulus given to April sales by the occurrence of Easter in that month and for other seasonal factors. fac-tors. Sales were not far below those of April, 1932. Wholesale trade which had increased during March, when most other measures of business busi-ness were declining, expanded considerably con-siderably further during April. Seasonally Sea-sonally adjusted freight carloadings and automobile sales moved upward from low levels, while intercoastad traffic remained unchanged. |