TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 523 



year too many came and got nipped, hence they thought the gang wouldn't 

 be in this time — or maybe by some other psychological method they 

 hazarded their cattle fortunes. Those that came in pell-mell this year 

 had plenty of thrills — but they all went up and down their backbones in 

 shuttlelike fashion. It will be a slow and painful recovery for a good 

 many; and yet the packers will tell you that for weeks previous the branch 

 houses in the east and elsewhere were having their troubles in moving 

 beef. But the producer didn't know this; he should have an organization 

 fo inform him. 



The week before Thanksgiving about 100,000 cattle arrived in Chi- 

 cago, or twice too many. On Monday came 39,000; on Tuesday, 27,000; 

 on Wednesday, 18,000, and on Friday and Saturday some more — and then 

 the crash! 



The packers have a pretty fair line on what the country will absorb 

 of beef from week to week, because of their intimate touch with their 

 thousands of branch houses or distributing points thruout the country, 

 and they tell me they would be glad to work with a big, effective cattle 

 feeders' co-operative association so as to predict about how many cattle 

 the Chicago market could absorb weekly to advantage, which number be- 

 ing settled upon by the co-operative association and fortified by independ- 

 ent advices of their own, would constitute the number that the associa- 

 tion would strive to have on the market for each week — in truth, for each 

 day of the week. 



Bad breaks could be in large measure controlled by the receipts being 

 controlled — this in harmony with the outlet demand. And receipts can 

 be controlled by a co-operative cattle feeders' association that carries in 

 its membership a sufficient number of corn belt feeders. The zone sys- 

 tem helps some, but it is a mere trifle compared to the control needed. 

 The zone system helps somewhat to distribute daily receipts, but the 

 market can be flooded in any one week, as happened Thanksgiving week, 

 above all weeks. 



All handlers of beef know that Thanksgiving week is a bugbear for 

 beef trade, because of the competition from turkey, chicken, goose, duck, 

 fowl of most any kind, and even rabbit — these being eaten in place of 

 beef. But how many producers know this? Suppose they do; one then 

 figures in this way: 



"Everybody knows this, and will stay away. I'll go in." He goes. 

 He finds the rest all there. Another one says the opposite to himself, and 

 stays at home. He may be lucky, that's all. 



What is needed is for their co-operative cattle feeders' association to 

 tell them when to come, they of course giving their preference as to about 

 when, and the association getting them in as near that time as possible. 



There is one effective way to avoid over-runs and under-runs, and that 

 is for the feeders to organize and control themselves. Are the cattle 

 feeders ready to pay the price of loyal co-operation to do this? I hope so, 

 because in the end they will be amply repaid, and should be more con- 

 tented than they are now. 



