PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 495 



information from the concentration points which operate largely in 

 Iowa and a few in Illinois, and a few, possibly, in other states. The same 

 information from small packers the small Iowa packers and other pack- 

 ers elsewhere who buy live stock, and especially hogs, direct, which do 

 not go through public stockyards markets. 



When all this information is assembled, we are going to be able to 

 tell just how many head of the various species of live stock have been 

 marketed in each state during each month in the year, and during the 

 year as a whole, and that is one kind of information that never has yet 

 been available. I do not think that anyone has ever been able to even 

 approximately guess the number of millions of head of live stock that 

 have actually moved to market out of the state of Iowa within a year, or 

 to what markets they have gone. 



Mr. Doty has told you of the work of the Producers' commission 

 firms at the markets, and Doctor Nourse has told you of the work that 

 they have been doing, and Mr. Espe of the work they have been doing 

 with regard to the local activities of co-operative shipping associations. 

 It is evident to me that the great value of this work that they are doing 

 is not going to be simply the possible saving of a few dollars a car in 

 commissions at the other end of the line or possibly a saving of a few 

 dollars in the possible excess profits that formerly went to the local live 

 stock dealer at this end of the line; but it will be a building up some 

 kind of an organization that can help in the more efficient marketing and 

 the more orderly marketing of the country's live stock, and that was one 

 of the important problems that was considered by the Live Stock Market- 

 ing Committee of Fifteen, and was the one that they had in mind when 

 they drew up this plan of producer owned and operated selling agencies 

 at these various yards. 



But it is also evident to me that there is no possibility of bringing 

 about a more orderly or a more efficient marketing of the live stock sup- 

 plies unless you have some way of determining what those supplies are 

 going to be, because if your orderly methods are not going to take hold 

 until the stuff reaches the market, it seems to me you are going to miss 

 the big chance of bringing about a better distribution. So it is in order 

 to try to develop methods of determining what these supplies are going 

 to be that this work is directed. 



In the corn belt states our work has developed far enough at the 

 present time so that we have undertaken to make an estimate of the 

 number of cattle and the number of sheep that were on feed as of Decem- 

 ber 1 of this year. Those estimates were released for publication, the one 

 on cattle yesterday, I think, and the one on sheep was to be released to- 

 day. You may be interested in knowing what those estimates were. The 

 estimate with regard to the probable number of cattle on feed as of Dec- 

 ember 1, this year, as compared with December 1 last year, is an appar- 

 ent increase of 27 per cent. This estimate is based upon the known 

 movement of stocker and feeder cattle and calves from forty-three public 

 stockyards into each state for the four months from August 1 to Decem- 

 ber 1, and for the year to December 1, covering four years past, and the 

 comparative movement of such cattle by months and years from sixty- 

 seven markets since 1916; upon corn and forage supplies in each state; 



