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Show The Livestock Situation LOS ANGELES, Calif., Dec. 17, 1935 Having just returned from a trip which carried me through the middle west and a visit to the great International Livestock Exposition at Chicago, the writer is convinced that the livestock industry is on a more properous footing than has been the case for several years. The middle west had good crops for the most part; there are more cattle in feedlots than for a good many years, consumer buying power is on the upgrade and trade opinion generally gen-erally is that we are in for several years of good times- The middle west has a great deal of "soft" com, due to the late planting period last summer and early frosts in the fall. About the only thing that can be done with this corn is to turn it immediately into beef cattle feeding. The result is that a good many middle western west-ern cattle are expected to come on the markets rather early. This probably will mean that the markets mar-kets will continue to be supplied with a vast amount of mediocre beef, while prime, longfed cattle will be scarcer than ever during the winter months-There months-There is a feeling in the middle west that cattle were laid in too high for comfort of feeders. However, How-ever, feeds are plentiful and relatively rela-tively cheap and most of the middle mid-dle western farmers believe that i beef production will pay a fair price for crops that would otherwise have little value. The California barley farmer could learn a valuable lesson les-son from the middle western farmer farm-er the idea of marketing grain through the medium of pork, beef and lamb instead of speculating on the highly fluctuating grain markets- Meats are staple and price trends do not begin to fluctuate to the extent that is true with barley. |