20 
BULLETIN 1440, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
factors which have been discussed in detail. 10 This would indicate 
that though such dealers may be able to force the price "out of line' ' 
temporarily, or may be able to hold the price higher or lower within a 
rather narrow range, over a period of any considerable length they 
can not keep the price from averaging about what is justified by the 
supplies offered and the demands of consumers. 
CAUSES OF THE VARIATIONS IN THE SUPPLY OF HOGS 
Previous charts have illustrated how widely the number of hogs 
received at the important markets varies from month to month. 
Much of this variation is due merely to seasonal variation, and is to 
be expected. Two- thirds of the annual crop of pigs are born in two 
short periods, from March through May, and during August and 
September, for spring and fall pigs respectively. Since most of 
these pigs are fattened for about the same length of time, the monthly 
receipts at markets naturally reflect the monthly variation in births. 
3,250 
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2,000 
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CORN- 
HOG PRICE RELATION AND HOG MARKETI 
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Fig. 17.— Receipts of hogs at 11 markets, and the corn-hog differential, both smoothed to eliminate 
seasonal variation. There are rather regular swings in the receipts of hogs, following by about 
18 months the similar swings in the relation of corn prices to hog prices 
The preservation of meat by curing and by cold storage has been 
developed to such a point that the seasonal variation in consumption 
is nothing like so great as is the seasonal swing in production. (Note 
again fig. 9, p. 11.) As a result the seasonal variation in the prices 
paid for live hogs is not nearly so large as it would be were there 
no storage of pork and pork products. 
In addition to seasonal variations, however, there have nearly 
always been large variations in the total production of hogs from 
year to year. Thus in 1923 receipts were higher for each correspond- 
ing month than they were in 1924. Figure 17, illustrates just how 
much variation there has been in the receipts of hogs in the last 20 
years, even after seasonal variations have been eliminated. It is 
noticeable that the moving average of receipts has swung up and 
down, fairly regularly, with generally about three years from one 
high point to the next one, although sometimes it has been as soon 
as two years, and once as long as five years before another high point 
was reached. This chart shows the receipts with a trend line drawn 
through them in such a way that the usual monthly variation has 
been smoothed out. It is evident that during some periods the 
10 Based on the correlation obtained with prices from the equation on page 34 
