500 TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 



7,116,000,000 pounds of pork produced, 2,690,000,000 pounds were exported, 

 this year only about 1,500,000,000 pounds were exported, leaving a domes- 

 tic consumption of about 5,500,000,000 pounds of pork, which is by long 

 odds the largest domestic consumption of pork this country has ever seen. 



It seems to me that if, with the industrial conditions that were pre- 

 vailing a year ago, and that prevailed pretty generally up into the spring, 

 we could consume that amount of pork and the amount of beef that has 

 also been produced during that time, that with the improved industrial 

 conditions that we have at the present time that there is a fair proba- 

 bility that we can consume the apparent excess supply at something like 

 the same prices that were paid for the supply last year. Now that is 

 simply my own opinion. I haven't any numercial basis for that opinion 

 except the condition of the two markets at the present time, and the way 

 that both beef and pork are going into consumption at the present time. 



In order to make that possible, it seems to me that it is going to be- 

 up to the producers to exercise a little restraint in marketing both hogs 

 and cattle. We have got rather a peculiar situation at this time where 

 corn has gone up and cattle are coming down, and hogs at least are not 

 going up any, and the margin of profit in feeding corn is becoming nar- 

 rower and narrower all the time, so that the apparent incentive is going 

 to be, as soon as this margin tends to disappear, for everybody who has 

 cattle or hogs to sell to rush them onto the market. That, I think, will 

 be a rather disastrous policy for this coming winter. If these expressed 

 intentions of the cattle feeders as I gave them, their various percentages 

 that they expect to market during the next few months, could be carried 

 out, I think that that would be as good a distribution of the cattle that 

 are now on feed as could be carried out. 



But if, instead of that, instead of having 14 per cent, or 13 or 12 per 

 cent, going to market in the next three months, you increase that 5 per 

 cent in each month, it looks to me as though it is going to hit the cattle 

 market and the beef market a pretty hard blow. Whether there is any 

 practical way that the cattle feeders can agree to carry out a program of 

 that kind, I am rather doubtful, but I simply wanted to indicate that if 

 that program is carried out, it is going to be better for the individual feed- 

 ers and for all feeders, than if you allow this pressure of the increased 

 price of corn to force these cattle and these hogs onto this winter market 

 in excessive numbers. 



President Sykes: Mr. Horlacher wants to announce the com- 

 mittee on resolutions for the Shippers. 



President Horlacher : As was suggested before lunch that we 

 appoint a committee to meet the Meat Producers' committee, 

 I appoint at this time C. G. Jensen, of Laurens; James Gordon, 

 of Dougherty, and A. J. Rawson, of Clear Lake. 



President Sykes: We stand adjourned, each organization to 

 meet at 9 :30 in their respective places in the morning. 



