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Show Scrap Iron Needed for Farm Machinery Farmers who hope to get new equipment during 1947 will do themselves a good turn to sell j their old scrap iron and give a , boost to the production of industrial in-dustrial steel. That's the appeal of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating co-operating with the Office of Temporary Tem-porary Controls (SPA) and the steel industry in trying to round up the Nation's unused scrap iron and steel and turn it to good purpose. Steel for new farm machinery should be fabricated of as much as half remelted scrap metal if it's to be turned out raoidly, efficiently, and economically. econo-mically. This is a profitable time to sell scrap, CPA advises. With prices decontrolled, dealers advanced ad-vanced their offers to the highest figures in years and they are eager to receive scrap from farms. All grades of cast scrap are especially needed now, and farmers are urged, wherever weather permits, to collect and sell every piece of scrap they can spare. i This is the second request for i movement of old scrap iron In recent months. Steel production is at an abnormally high level in trying to catch up with postwar post-war civilian needs. But steel mills generally are getting only enough scrap iron to run on a week-lo-week basis. In prewar times, they often had enough scrap stockpiled lo last several months. CPA states that steel production faces a slow-down between now and spring 'unless crap iron continues to show up in large quantity. Continued high steel production produc-tion is needed to meet market demands for new farm equipment, equip-ment, housing, automobiles, and innumerable industrial products. Farm machinery production a-lone a-lone has been breaking all records rec-ords in recent months with a $70,000,000 volume in October including nearly 30,000 tractors. For the country as a whole, the average farm is now 50 acres larger than 25 years ago and 20 acres larger than 5 years ago. Oklahoma, for example, was an area settled almost entirely in 1 160-acre homesteads, but the average farm increased from 166 acres in 1920 to 220 acres in 1945. BAE credits .the strong demand de-mand for farm, products since 1940, plus rapid strides in mechanization me-chanization and other technological technolo-gical advances for the increase. Turkey production in 1947, estimated at 34 million birds, is expected to be down 16 per cent from 1946 output the second sec-ond successive reduction since the peak production year of 1945. |