lowed that up with exports of approximately 2,750,000,000 pounds the first year after the war. These figures drive home the fact that this was a period of outstanding achievement in the meat export business of the United States, but, at the same time, the period of the most abnormal development ever experienced by that business.

The war focused upon America almost the entire European demand for meat foods. In their endeavor to supply this demand the producers of livestock in the United States cast aside the policies and practices evolved during the pre-war period of adjustment to a very much restricted export trade in meat-food articles. The possibilities of the United States as a surplus meat-producing country were disclosed by the tremendous expansion of our livestock and meat industry in the brief space of four years without at the same time causing any curtailment in the necessary war-time expansion of our other essential industries. Contemplating this latent productive capacity, we can not escape the conclusion that it had not been utilized during the pre-war period, because the margin of profit did not justify the production of a surplus of some of our meat products for the export trade.

As has already been suggested in the discussion of the war-time increase in our pork exports, we apparently had started an expansion in the production and exporting of meat food products that could not be stopped merely by signing an armistice. Believing that we would have to feed devastated Europe for several years after the war and encouraged by an increasing domestic demand during the postwar boom of 1919, meat production was maintained on the war basis. Our exports of meat products continued to pour into European markets in a volume in nearly every case far in excess of the average amounts we had been able to sell to these same countries during the 10 years prior to the war, apparently forgetting both the depleted financial condition of our customers and the accumulated supplies which our competitors, partially cut off from these markets by the hazards of shipping during the war period, now were pouring into the same trade channels. Undoubtedly there were, however, many producers in the United States who realized immediately after the war that a reduction in livestock production

was necessary.

The immediate effect of such liquidation was to increase further the surplus for export, but the ultimate effect was to help pile up a stock of our animal products abroad far greater than the foreign markets were able to absorb. The net result of these production and export policies was an export of almost 3,500,000,000 pounds of meat products from the United States during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1919, as compared with an annual average of less than 1,500,000,000 pounds during the five years before the World War.

POSTWAR ADJUSTMENTS IN AMERICAN MEAT EXPORTS

BEEF

After the European War our beef exports declined quickly and by 1920 were practically eliminated as an important item in our foreign-meat shipments. For the second time the beef-export business of the United States was lost to competing countries that could

place a cheaper product on the European markets. When this first occurred the cattle industry of the United States was not so violently affected, because the decline in our beef exports was spread over a period of more than a decade. During this time beef production was gradually restricted by the conversion of range land to cultivation, while our growing industrial population increased the domestic demand for beef products. But the adjustment of cattle production since the war to the comparatively sudden loss of the export outlets for our surplus has been attended by considerable difficulties, further complicated by a fluctuating domestic demand.

The program of increased beef production entered upon as a war measure was encouraged for several months after the cessation of hostilities, both by a strong domestic demand during the period of postwar prosperity in 1919 and by fairly large sales of our beef products to European countries. The reduction of our beef production from the war-time basis was delayed also by lack of any form of organization among our cattle raisers for the effective control of production. In the final analysis it was left to the individual producer to effect the reduction, and naturally each one preferred that some one other than himself discontinue his cattle operations. Aside from these conditions, however, changes in beef production to meet altered conditions can not be made as quickly as is possible in the production of other classes of meat animals. A program of cattle raising, because of the longer maturing period, is essentially a longtime affair and once entered upon, even as a temporary war measure, it could not be abandoned prematurely without serious loss.

Taking all these facts into consideration, it is not difficult to understand why we continued for months after the signing of the armistice to pour our surplus beef products into the European markets in quantities far greater than our pre-war shipments to these markets. During 1920 the volume of our beef exports dropped sharply, and have not since amounted to more than a minor proportion of our total meat-export business. Notwithstanding the increase in beef production in 1922 and 1923, exceeding the pre-war average from 300,000,000 to 500,000,000 pounds, our exports of beef declined during both these years, nearly all of the product being consumed in the United States.

PORK PRODUCTS

In contrast to cattle, the production of hogs and pork products can be much more readily altered to meet changing conditions in demand. The enormous production and exports of 1918 and 1919 immediately following the serious shortage during the preceding year would not have been possible with any other meat animal than the prolific and early maturing hog. The record production and exports of pork and lard during 1923 shows also how quickly hog production responds to cheap and plentiful corn and favorable market outlets for hog products. This accounts in part for the fluctuations in volume of exports of hog products from year to year since the war. However, when we consider pork and lard exports separately we find that pork exports declined generally after the war until the sharp recovery in 1923, while lard exports since the war have on the whole increased in volume, culminating in the record

shipment of more than a billion pounds to foreign countries in 1923.

It will be remembered that during the war our lard exports were practically at a standstill, while our exports of other pork products were tremendously increased. This war situation in lard exports was due to the loss of our central European markets, Germany especially. The return of these countries into the market for American lard accounts for a considerable part of the increase in lard exports during the past three years, Germany alone taking more than onethird of the billion pounds exported in 1923.

These variations in the volumes of pork and lard during the same period illustrate another phase of the adaptability of hog products to changing market conditions. When the market outlet for fresh pork products is restricted, a large proportion of our hogs can be put into semipermanent form, by curing or by making lard, and later released into consumption as needed. In this way hog products obtain a marketing advantage over other classes of meat products competing with them for world trade. The position of our hog products în international meat trade is further strengthened by failure of any other country to produce a real competitor of the American lard hog. Whereas other countries with abundant and cheap range have replaced our beef products in foreign markets, there is not yet in any other country a hog-producing area comparable to the Corn Belt of the United States.

Not only have our beef products had to compete with similar products from other countries, but they have also been forced to sell in foreign as well as in domestic markets in competition with the hog products of this country. When we take into consideration the vast amount of pork and lard which are produced annually in the United States, it is not difficult to understand how the competition of a large surplus of cheap pork products depresses our sales of beef products in both foreign and home markets.

Pork and pork products are predominant to-day in the export-meat trade of the United States and according to the best authorities are likely to withstand competition from any known or prospective sources. Apparently the hope of an increased consumption of beef, mutton, and lamb in the United States, as well as an increased profit to the hog raiser, lies in a better export business in pork and pork products just as much as it does in a decrease in the excessive hog production of the last two years. It is therefore entirely appropriate, from the standpoint of the present as well as the probable future development of our foreign trade in meat-food products, that the following discussion of American export-meat trade practices is based primarily on the methods employed in disposing of our surplus pork products in foreign markets.

HOG PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES

The United States is the leading hog country of the world. The Department of Agriculture estimates that during the calendar year 1923 more than 81,000,000 hogs were slaughtered in the United States for domestic and foreign consumption. There is a close relation between hogs and corn in the United States, and although hogs are raised in every State, nearly two-thirds of the commercial produc

tion is in that portion of the United States known as the Corn Belt, including Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Nebraska, and Ohio. For the last 50 years this section has been the center of hog production. Furthermore, the centers of hog production have been relatively close to the centers of population. These facts indicate how successfully hog production has fitted into the increasing industrialism and growing population of the Mississippi Valley.

There are several different sources of supplies of hogs for market. Hogs are raised on a large number of farms as a by-product. They are not only highly efficient converters of grain into meat, but they are also the most efficient farm animals in utilizing feeds which would otherwise go to waste, such as unmarketable grain, waste from truck crops, and by-products from the dairy. Cattle feeders generally put hogs in their feed lots to clean up the grain wasted in cattle feeding, as well as to use the corn not fed to the cattle. Hogs are also produced as a by-product by some industries, such as canning factories, where droves of hogs are fed on refuse from the plants. The extensive use made of hogs in the United States for the purpose of utilizing so many products of both agriculture and industry that otherwise would be lost has a great deal to do with our ability to produce and sell this very desirable class of meatfood products in foreign markets at a cost that generally defies competition.

There is another group of hog producers who, though comparatively small in number now, will have in the future considerable influence on export trade of the United States, because of their ability through proper methods to supply the type of hog demanded by the British market. The reference is to that group located in the principal dairying regions, where by-products of the dairy, in conjunction with barley and other such grains, make possible the raising of animals of the bacon type.

Notwithstanding the various methods of hog production in the United States mentioned above, we should not lose sight of the fact that the production of hogs for market is concentrated in the Corn Belt. From 30 to 40 per cent of the annual corn crop of the United States is fed to hogs, and the American type of fat hog, which is the basis of most of our export meat trade, is the result of abundant and cheap corn.

SHIPPING HOGS FROM LOCAL POINTS TO CENTRAL MARKETS

The Department of Agriculture has estimated that fully 80 per cent of the hogs marketed in the United States are shipped to the public stockyards, the largest of which are located in the Corn Belt. Hogs are shipped to central markets in carload lots in specially constructed railroad cars furnished by the carriers. Hog cars usually are of the double-deck type. The railroad carriers often make up livestock trains which are given right of way over other freight trains and moved at a speed approaching that of passenger trains. The railroads also provide yards at various points along their lines where hogs may be unloaded for rest, food, and water. They are required by State and Federal laws to unload them at the end of a specified number of hours, usually 28 to 36, for feed and rest in transit to market. Some of these statutes require free transpor

tation for attendants and also regulate the rate at which livestock trains must be moved. The Bureau of Animal Industry of the Department of Agriculture inspects animals at local shipping points whenever it deems such inspection necessary to prevent the spread of hog diseases or the shipment to market of any animal not fit for human consumption.

Some producers ship their hogs in carload lots. Such shipments come mainly from the cattle feeders, with some from the straight hog feeders, while the shipper of mixed stock, who loads hogs and other livestock into the same car, is also a factor. The local livestock buyers probably ship more hogs to market than any other class of shippers. The large volume of their shipments is due to the fact that they provide usually the only local cash market for hogs, as a rule paying the producers cash for their animals in any quantity offered and assuming all further marketing risks.

In recent years cooperative livestock shipping has reduced considerably the shipments of country buyers. Cooperative marketing has received a greater impetus in the past few years, with the result that nearly 40 per cent of the hogs received in Chicago alone in 1923 were shipped by cooperative shipping associations. The simplest form of cooperative livestock shipping is that in which a group of farmers in a community join in shipping their hogs to market. One among them is appointed manager, whose business it is to superintend the concentration and forwarding in carload lots. When assembled, the hogs are marked for identification, loaded in the cars, and turned over to the carriers for delivery to a designated consignee at the central market.

Before the day of efficient refrigeration hogs were mostly marketed during the winter months. According to reports of the Armour Livestock Bureau, the normal shipments of hogs to market in recent years have been: For the period November to March, 40.7 per cent; from March to July, 32 per cent; from July to November, 27.3 per cent. However, when there is an increased production of corn the usual practice of the farmer has been to feed longer and to heavier weights, thus smoothing out irregularity in marketing. Another factor has been the increased movement to have brood sows farrow twice a year, this tending also to more even receipts at central markets. The fact that the United States has a large corn crop, which usually must be marketed in the form of meat, together with changes in the volume of hog shipments to market, with variations in production conditions, have given the packer a highly complicated problem in disposing of the surplus overseas in competition with pork and other meat products from many countries.

ORGANIZATION OF CENTRAL MARKETS

At the central hog markets trading is confined almost entirely to the principal stockyards, which, though privately owned, are open markets operated under the supervision of the United States Department of Agriculture. The stockyards usually are located in the suburbs and may be quite extensive in area. They are divided into sections with pens, alleys, driveways, and overhead viaducts. There are railroad switching tracks, loading and unloading platforms, scales for weighing droves of hogs, and facilities for water