OBSERVATIONS 29 



Figures from the Chicago stock yards are taken because that is 

 the heart of the livestock market in the Central West, and receives more 

 stock than any other market in the district. The time covered by the 

 table includes the time when there were the most cattle in the United 

 States, the largest number of native and range cattle, except one year, 

 and shows the greatest changes with respect to average prices for both 

 range cattle and native, and the changes that took place in the number 

 of calves that were received at the stock yards during the last ten years. 



In the year 1905, 2,964,469 native steers were received. In 1914 

 the receipts were 2,032,236, a decrease of 932,233. During the year 

 1905, 389,000 range cattle were received. During the year 1914 the 

 range cattle received were 168,900, being a decrease qf 220,100, or a 

 total decrease during the ten-year period of 1,152,333. One would 

 naturally expect that where there is such an enormous and unprec- 

 edented decrease in cattle, there would also be a relative decrease in 

 veal calves sent to market, for it is obvious where there is a decrease 

 in cattle there will also be a decrease in the number of calves. But 

 notwithstanding the fact that there was a constant decrease in both 

 native and range steers marketed during the last ten years, 380,835 

 calves were received at the stock yards in 1905, and 521,512 in 1911, 

 an increase of 140,677. So there was some reason other than a sur- 

 plus of calves that made the farmers so anxious to get rid of them. 

 The prices they received could not have influenced them because calves 

 brought less that year than they did the year preceding. A glance at 

 the two columns giving the average price received for range cattle and 

 for natives which refers to steers received from the farms shows 

 that the average price for native steers ranging in weight from 1,050 

 pounds to 1,200 pounds, during the year 1905, was $4.55, and gradually 

 rose until it reached $6.40 during the year 1910, 'when the receipts of 

 calves were 499,941 ; that is, during the time when the prices paid 

 for native and range steers increased very slowly, the receipts of steers 

 decreased and receipts of calves increased, showing conclusively that 

 farmers sold the male calves for veal because market conditions from 

 1905 to 1910 gave little if any promise of profit if they raised and 

 fattened them. This view is confirmed by the fact that when the aver- 

 age price of native steers during the year 1911 was cut to $6 per 

 hundred weight in face of the decreased receipts of both range and 

 natives, the receipts of veal calves reached 521,512, the highest mark 

 in the history of the Chicago stock yards, and was further veri- 

 fied during the year 1912 when native 'steers averaged $7.35 per hun- 

 dred weight and the receipts of calves decreased to 505,401 ; and again 

 in 1913 when natives brought, on an average, $8.10 per hundred weight 

 and the receipts of calves fell to 375,382, less than had been received any 



