96 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



terrific collapse after the war, whenever the foreign demand for American 

 supplies returned to normal. 19 



The beef cattle story repeats the corn-hog story with variations. Most 

 important of the differences was the fact that the Argentine, rather than 

 the United States, had been the chief source of supply for Europe before 

 the war and no doubt would have continued in that capacity during the 

 war but for the shipping shortage. With shipping at a premium, how- 

 ever, as the war wore on the short trip across the North Atlantic tended 

 to overbalance the higher cost of United States beef, so that American 

 exports of this commodity grew by leaps and bounds. Whereas total 

 exports of beef from the United States had reached only 150,000,000 

 pounds in 1914, four years later the figure was 954,000,000. The increase 

 in beef production necessary to make these figures possible was not accom- 

 plished without earnest effort. Beef cattle require pasture, and the tendency 

 of the times, as already noted, was to plow up pastures and meadows, even 

 in regions of inadequate rainfall, in order to plant wheat or other grain. 

 Moreover, although Americans patriotically ate less pork during the war, 

 their consumption of beef actually showed a per capita increase. 20 



While the Food Administration neither made a price guarantee, as in 

 the case of wheat, nor designated a fair price, as with hogs, it did promise 

 to do its best to see that the cattle growers were adequately remunerated. 

 In its efforts to support the market, however, the Food Administration 

 had always to keep an eye on the American consumer, whose cries of 

 anguish as prices rose had strong political repercussions. Farmers claimed 

 that in response to consumer protests the Food Administration actually 

 urged the packers to keep their prices down, much to the disadvantage 

 of the producer. Actually, beef prices advanced from an average of $6.24 

 in 1914 to $9.56 in 1919, while at the end of the war superior beef-steer 

 cattle brought as high as $17.50 per hundredweight on the Chicago mar- 

 ket. So stimulated, the cattle industry expanded in spite of all obstacles. 

 When the war ended the number of beef cattle owned by American 

 farmers had increased by 20 per cent. Just what was to happen when 



19. Hibbard, Effects of the Great War upon Agriculture, p. 132; Statistical Ab- 

 stract of the United States, 1920, p. 497. 



20. Genung, in Farmers in a Changing World, pp. 287-88; Wallaces' Farmer, 

 XLIII (March 22, 1918), p. 539; XLIV (April u, 1919), p. 853. 



