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scarce, and low prices have discouraged the production of 

 food that was in abundance. 



The way the farmer's son determined whether society 

 wanted him to be a farmer, a coal miner, or a doctor was on 

 the basis of price. In fact, price always was the major cri- 

 terion by which the producer could learn what society 

 wanted. This principle is thoroughly ingrained in all pro- 

 ducers. 



Prices affect supplies in many ways. A twenty-five-cent 

 rise in the price of hogs on Tuesday increases the run of hogs 

 the following Thursday. A one-cent drop in the price of eggs 

 in Boston relative to the price in New York diverted eggs 

 from Boston to New York. The government's low ceiling 

 prices on red kidney beans discouraged New York farmers 

 so much that they decreased the 1943 acreage about 20 per 

 cent. The government's price policy regarding sugar resulted 

 in a 39-per-cent contraction of sugar-beet acreage. The ef- 

 fects of abnormally high prices for hogs may be felt two or 

 three years later. This is about as soon as the price telegram 

 can get from the consumer to the producer and the reply, in 

 the form of more pork chops, sent to the consumer. Changes 

 in the price of beef cattle have their effect seven to eight 

 years later. 



Very few realize the myriads of different effects fixed prices 

 will have on production a week, a month, a year, or a decade 

 hence. It is gradually dawning on some of our administrators, 

 however, that they cannot get food in the quantities desired 

 at artificially low frozen prices. 



Price Guides Distribution 



Price has always been the primary force guiding goods 

 through the channels of trade. Whether milk should be con- 

 sumed in its natural state, churned into butter, pressed into 



