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of business Thursday. In the futures' markets, wheat, corn and oats ■ 

 ^ were about the same as a week earlier; soybeans were up almost 3 cents; 

 butter futures had declined and egg futures gained d^oring the week. 



Secretary Wickard^s dilemma . Wednesday the price of corn 

 futures opened 5 cents a bushel beloi^ Tuesday's close. Soybeans also 

 opened at least 5 cents lower. Corn was dovm the limit permitted under 

 the rules of the Board of Trade, and soybeans only had a fraction of f. 

 cent to go. Other grains opened weekly and remained weak throughout the 

 day. Corn recovered 3 cents of its decline, then lost another Ij cents 

 to close about 3^ cents below Tuesday's close. This drastic decline in 

 prices was attributed to a statement by Secretary Wickard charging that 

 recent speculative price advances of corn were unjustified, and that the 

 Department of Agriculture would use every means at its disposal to 

 maintain reasonable feed prices. In last v;eGk*s reviev;, I pointed out 

 that because of the very rapid rise in speculative commitments in both 

 corn and rye futures, they were vulnerp.ble from the short time point of 

 view; but from the longer time point of vievj, corn was not over-priced. 



Secretary Wickard' s statement and the resulting market re- ' 

 action call for careful analysis. In the first place, farmers (and 

 Secretary Wickard) have a very important task ahead of them. That task 

 is to -oroduce, in 19^2, 125 billion pounds of milk and ^.2 billion 

 dozen eg^^s, to m.arket 6^^ million chickens and 35*75 million turkeys, 

 and to slaughter ^3 million hogs, 22 million cattle and calves and 22.9 

 million sheep and lambs. In addition to these products, it is also 

 going to be necessary to produce 11^ to 12 billion pounds of fats and 

 oils including the lard, butter, tallow and other animal products taken 

 care of in the marketing of livestock and livestock products listed 

 above. That is a very large order. In fact it is the largest order 

 that has ever confronted the American farmers. 



But it may be asked, "What has all of this to do with txhe 



