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Show "products, there will he just that ' much less beef consumed, i Beer cattle producers realize, however how-ever that in due time, our beef sup-! sup-! P!v 'will again be built up to a normal supply. this thought in mind, actual steps are being taken to popularize beef through a comprehensive compre-hensive and well planned advertising and publicity campaign, but it seems essential that serious consideration should bo given to quality products. The hog market also seems to be on a strong footing and with prices even now on a relatively high plane, there are many in the trade who firm ly believe that the late summer and early fall months will see hogs on a higher plane. The lamb market has held up well this season, in spite of greatly increased supplies. With good feed prospects in the big lamb producing sections in the Inter-mountain country coun-try and the Northwest, there seems to be a general feeling that lamb may be ai cheaper meat than beef or pork this year. Due to sound production pro-duction ideas and comprehensive advertising ad-vertising and publicity carried out by the wool growers, lamb is no longer a specialty and the beef and pork markets will, as a result, feel the effect of competition from lamb more than in recent years. . o There appears to be a continued firm undertone in the beef cattle market, as every indication still points to a continued period of light supplies on the western markets petition from other foods, including other meats, and all sorts of vegetables, vege-tables, fruits and cereal foods. The human system requires just so much food and if it is filled with other Feed conditions in California - tklz year have been disappointing, with the result that the Pacific Coast markets mar-kets did not have the usual extremely extreme-ly heavy supplies of grass-fat cattle marketed in May that usually occur. June receipts are likely to be rather light for this season of the year, and the trade is showing a disposition to quickly buy up all decently fleshed steers. On the other hand, the poor feed conditions have forced some cattlemen to ship to market a great quantity of half-fat and plain cattle which are, of course, not popular with the meat trade. On this class of material, the demand has been rather rath-er narrow and buyers are slow to take hold of such stock. Thin cattle are still selling relatively rela-tively high, in the opinion of cattle feeders, and all of this thin and half fat stock IS going into killer channels. chan-nels. There seems to be a considerable consider-able amount of grain stubble fields available for short pasturing, supplemented sup-plemented with cottonseed cake, but with money rather scarce and interest inter-est rates higher than normally, those who ordinarily might be buyers for finishing purposes are not showing a disposition to buy. There seems to be no real indica-. tion of any material increase in cattle cat-tle production in the intire country. This is particularly true in the western west-ern states, where range feed is none too satisfactory, particularly in the cattle breeding states, such as Arizona Arizo-na and New Mexico. Then too, cattlemen cat-tlemen are backward about paying prevailing prices for breeding cows and heifers, which, because of both scarcity and competition from meat distributors, are relatively high. Coupled with high money rates, the situation does not appear to be conducive con-ducive to increased beef production. Southwestern cattle breeders who are fortunately situated as to feed are showing a greater disposition to hold back their female calves and yearlings but this is not being done on a large scale, and even if it were, i it would, of course, take another two or three years before the young stock would start producing calf crops. All in all, the beef situation is on a strong basis. There appears to be no thought in the mind of anyone in the trade of any lower scale of beef values for some time to come. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that the value of beef cattle on the market must always depend upon up-on the ability and willingness of the consumer to pay. Further, beef prices, as ever, will continue to be regulated to a great extent by corn |
