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over two thirds of the chickens and dairy cows, which are 

 outside the Corn Belt, have been excluded from patronizing 

 it? This was not equality for the livestock, neither was it 

 equality for man. In the horse-and-buggy days, the South- 

 erner who loved his hominy and corn grits, despite his much 

 publicized economic woes, at least was able to beat the hog 

 to the corncrib. Under price ceilings, he no longer eats at the 

 first table. One of them mournfully observed: "If you want 

 to eat corn, you'd better be a hog." 



Our Livestock Policy Feed 'Em and Weep 



The administration has not been lacking in professional 

 advice. One of the Corn Belt's prominent agricultural econ- 

 omists 2 agrees with the administration's livestock expansion 

 policy, contending that this is the time to "scrape our feed 

 bins." At present price ratios, and with the likelihood that 

 the feed grain crops will not be so good as in 1942, there is 

 little question that the bottom of the bin will be scraped. 



The question may be raised whether this is a propitious 

 time to scrape the bins. In normal times farmers carry most 

 of their surplus crops from one season to the next in the form 

 of livestock and not in the form of grain. Under the "ever 

 normal granary" policy, the government accumulated con- 

 siderable quantities of grain in corncribs, grain bins, and ele- 

 vators. At recent price ratios, the government attempted to 

 empty the bins and had little trouble in accomplishing that 

 end. 



In time of peace a livestock-producing nation should carry 

 minimum stocks of grain and maximum numbers of livestock 

 from one year to the next, because of the economy of carrying 

 food in that form. In time of war this policy should be re- 

 versed. More than the normal amount of grain and less than 



2 Schultz, T. W.: "Let's Get This Straight I" Iowa Farm Economist, 

 Volume IX, Number 1-2 (January-February 1943) , page 1(5, 



