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60 BULLETIN 1300, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
these unfortunate oscillations, hog breeding must be based on a 
sounder vision of prospective conditions than can be obtained from 
the memory of past profits. 
The average price which the packers pay for hogs during a given 
season depends less on the actual supply offered them than on the 
current and prospective conditions in the country as a whole, as indi- 
cated by past breeding and current and past corn prices. The inter- 
actions among the corn and hog prices and hog breeding, around 
which the whole hog situation centers, are given in more detail in 
Figure 27. 
The summer live weight is for various reasons a remarkably close 
indicator of the amount of breeding for the period from the preceding 
through the following fall. It shows higher correlations on the whole 
with other hog variables than any other variable dealt with, although 
the least affected by corn prices. Thus winter slaughter and pork 
production could have been predicted with remarkable accuracy 
during the period studied from knowledge of the summer weight of a 
year and a half before (correlations of + 0.78 and + 0.83, respectively) . 
In general, the best predictions could have been made on the basis of 
preceding summer weights and corn prices. 
Winter live weight, on the contrary, is determined largely by the 
preceding corn crop and only secondarily by the amount of breeding 
during the preceding year. 
Seasonal slaughter is determined in part by the amount of breeding 
during at least three years preceding and in part by a tendency toward 
concentration in the summer season, in which prices are high, at the 
expense of the winter, whenever the corn supply permits. The corn 
crop has its maximum effect on slaughter in the following summer, 
largely as the result of the latter cause. There is a second peak of 
slaughter in the third following winter due to the stimulus to breeding. 
Pork production depends very much more on the fluctuations in 
slaughter than on the relatively small percentage fluctuations in 
weight. 
The eastern pack runs parallel to the western in most respects. 
The influence oi corn crop and prices is considerably less. Western 
hog prices, on the other hand, are even more closely correlated with 
the eastern than with the western pack, probably owing to their 
influence on eastern shipments. 
The farm price of hogs is very closely correlated with the packers' 
price but seems to lag behind several months. 
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