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'^ fields to harvest their beans during the last tv;o or three weeks, and 

 there is serious concern as to the effect of the heavy and continued 

 rains upon both yield and quality. The private crop estimators have 

 reduced their estimates about 5 million bushels. If this rainy weather 

 continues, the estimate will have to be revised downward even further. 

 Soybean meal prices had been sluggish until Just recently. With the 

 very heavy feeding program that is ahead of us, if we are to fill the 

 needs for all sorts of animal products, the price of protein concen- 

 trates is likely to rise substantially over the next few months. 



Those farmers who have a good supply of beans that were 

 harvested before the rains began will be in an exceptionally favorable 

 position to take advantage of the heavy demand for seed beans next 

 spring. It is quite probable that the rainy weather has caused, or 

 may cause, the beans still in the field to show poor germinating quality. 



Butter and eggs . In previous issues of the review, we have 

 tended to take for granted the usual seasonal price movements and have 

 indicated strength or weakness after allowance of usual seasonal 

 variations, I find that this leads to some confusion; for example, 

 I may have said that the price of eggs was steady when actually it was 

 rising rather rapidly, as would be expected at this time of the year 

 based upon usual seasonal movements. Egg prices tend to reach their 

 peak in November and decline rather rapidly to March and then remain 

 fairly stable with only a very slight upward trend until July. From 

 July to November, the trend is very steeply upward. This fall, the 

 usual seasonal movement has taken place, but in addition to that, there 

 ^ has been more than a seasonal increase during the past two weeks. The 

 trend of prices after allowance for seasonal movements can be observed 

 by watching the trend of prices of futures which, of course, have 



