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Show and the recent serious depression in the hide market accentuated efforts of cattlemen to demand protection on this important commodity. Following out their campaign pledges, Congressmen Congress-men voted increases on many other agricultural products, particularly on sugar and dairy products. -o Wheat dropped to the lowest price levels in many years towards the close of May, with wheat from May delivery under $1.00 a bushel for the first time in 13 years. Other grains naturally are affected by lower wheat The new tariff bill carries increases in the import duties on both live and dressed cattle, adds to the import duties on wool and creates a tariff on hides and leather. The latter duty has long been sought by cattlemen prices, and with crop prospects over the country as a whole reported very favorable, indications are that the grain farmer who sacks his grain and hauls it to market will not receive as, favorable prices for his product as in ther recent years. However, the grain farmer who sells his crop as beef, pork, lamb or dairy products is not worried over a lower grain market. mar-ket. Instead he may profit by the fact that the undertone of the hog market appears to be particularly good, with more than 12 cents a pound for hogs at Los Angeles, an'd no indications of cheaper beef or lamb. For the man who is selling off his grain in the form of pork, on the present market, $12.00 hogs mean about the equivalent of $40.00 a ton for barley, figuring that the cost of sacking, warehousing and hauling of barley would more than offset the cost of transporting and marketing hogs. California's record lamb crop has now been marketed, including around 550,000 fat and feeder lambs which were shippe'd to eastern consuming centers, either on the hoof or in the form of dressed meat under refrigeration. refrigera-tion. This is by far the largest number num-ber of lambs ever shipped out of California Cali-fornia and denotes the increasing importance im-portance of the California sheep industry. in-dustry. Prices held up remarkably well in view of the record numbers of lambs and the fact tbat a large proportion pro-portion of the supply was in thin flesh, 'due to shortage of range feeds. Indicating the interest in better breeding among the California whool growers, a remarkable sale of pure bred rams were sold at an average price of $49.44 per head. A Corrie-dale Corrie-dale ram sold for $550, the highest price ever paid for a ram of this breed and the highest price ever recorded at a California ram sale. With the sheep business now practically prac-tically at its absorption point on California ranges and large pastures, many smaller farmers are beginning to carry sheep on their places as a means of cash income and building up soil fertility. Several of the citrus growers in California are now carrying carry-ing sheep in their orchards. As an example of the growth of this business, busi-ness, it is worthy of comment that four Southern California citrus men purchased an entire carload of pure bred rams and ewes at the recent California ram sale at Sacramento. Stockman are evincing great interest in-terest in the tariff measure just passed pass-ed by the House of Representatives and which now goes before the Senate |
