68 AGRICULTURAL PRICES 



squarely and come to the conclusion that in all probability pork 

 exports, within three or four years, will decline to about one-third 

 their present volume. For four or five years previous to the war, 

 the tendency of pork exports was somewhat downward. It is re- 

 ported that at that time Great Britain was buying less and less of 

 her hog products from the United States, and that she was thinking 

 of buying more and more of her coarser quality of hog products 

 from China. At the present time there is considerable Chinese 

 bacon on the English market. It is also worth while to note in this 

 connection that the English consumption of meat is now 1,200,000 

 tons, which is 600,000 tons less than her pre-war consumption of 

 meat. If England has cut down on her meat consumption one- 1 

 third, the probabilities are that the continent of Europe has cut 

 down on its meat consumption one-half. Probably never again 

 will the world eat as much meat per capita as it did before the war. 

 Whether we like it or not, we may as well face the probability that 

 our pork exports are on the decline, and will not stop declining un- 

 til they are down to about one- third of the 1919 volume. 



And we may expect that this decline in pork exports will have 

 some influence on corn prices, and therefore on corn land prices. 

 The future situation is of course considerably different than that 

 which has existed at any time during the past forty-five years. 

 The volume of money in circulation may be such that there will be 

 no actual decline in corn prices or in corn land prices. Just the 

 same, we may expect that the unusually favorable position which 

 has been enjoyed by the corn belt during the past three years will 

 disappear with the decline in pork exports. 



Previous to the war, Great Britain and Germany absorbed 

 more of our pork exports than any other nations. Great Britain 

 took 73 per cent of our pork exports, 86 per cent of our exports 

 of hams and shoulders, and 36 per cent of our lard exports. Ger- 

 many took 30 per cent of our lard exports and practically nothing 

 in the way of bacon, hams or shoulders. Cuba, Holland and Bel- 

 gium were the other large importers of American hog products, 

 but these three nations together required only about one-tenth as 

 much as Great Britain. If Great Britain cuts down her consump- 

 tion of meat to two-thirds what it was before the war, she will be 

 much more nearly self-supporting from a meat standpoint than 

 she is now, and probably will not import from the United States 

 more than one-half as much meat as she did before the war. Great 

 Britain owes considerable money to the United States, and, more- 

 over, in the future she will not get from the United States in such 

 large measure ocean freight charges on the British merchant ma- 



