Step back in Time

Mr. E.F. Johnson?s Statement of the Grazing Fee Questions

The position of the sheepmen is that, due to present economic conditions and depression of the livestock industry, the reduction in grazing fees should be made. Their arguments for the reduction of fees are as follows:

Four years ago a ruling was made by the then Secretary of Agriculture Jardine at Salt Lake City, under which the present schedule of rates was put into effect to stand ten years, with the understanding that if economic conditions demanded a change of rates before the ten-year period expired, there would be an adjustment of rates considered. With this promise before them, stockmen have asked for a reduction of rates on sheep and cattle for the following reasons:

The livestock industry is in the worst depression it has ever known. In the years 1930 and 1931, the sheepmen have had a loss of $2 per head for 1930 and of $3.50 per head for 1931 with taxes, delinquent interest on mortgages unpaid and

While it is said that fees are a very small part of operating costs, grazing fees are nevertheless a tax and also the last straw on the tax list in eastern Oregon. The average reduction at thirty percent would amount to $216 on a band of sheep. This $216 would pay the counties in taxes more than the twenty-five percent paid by the government. In addition to paying grazing fees, stockmen are among the heaviest taxpayers of their counties. Further, in order to get an allotment in a national forest for sheep, a man must have commensurate ranch property, which means that all or practically all of the livestock men are heavy taxpayers on other real estate.

It is the contention of the sheepmen that the government has commercialized the public ranges against patented pasture lands of the state.

The Wool Market Situation

Despite the development of a few adverse factors during August the month closed with the underlying confidence in wool values still very prominent and consumption of wool continuing at a high rate.        

Although August developed a slowing-up in the buying of fabrics for future delivery, the outlook for retail trade in both men?s and women?s goods this fall is very good. The total consumption of wool, so far this year, shows the largest increase over the corresponding period of the preceding year of any time since the increase of the first half of 1927 over 1926.

During the last part of August the bulk of the demand was for original bag wools, because of their availability for quick delivery. Prices on these wools were steady. This would indicate that the manufacturing situation continues sound despite the slowing-up of fabric buying during the month.

The first of September it was estimated that wool dealers had disposed of fully 50 percent of their holdings. The summer demand steadily broadened out from the fine wool grades, where it has been confined for some time, to include everything down to low quarter blood. Prices have been strengthening and, naturally, the Corporation has been urging them upward at every point possible in an effort to make the highest supplemental return to the growers when settling on the 1931 clip.

If the demand develops into anything like forecast volume, the National should have disposed of considerably more than half of its 1931 wools by the first of the year. The rate of sale of Cooperative wools on the active market of this year has been far ahead of that of a year ago. The situation is very favorable toward early reports on the 1931 business and the Corporation having made its new wools into smaller lines than those of 1930, is going to do its utmost to make final returns to growers at the earliest possible moment.

National Wool Week

Representatives of the entire wool industry met in Washington, D.C., on August 18 at the request of the National Wool Marketing Corporation to discuss plans for conducting a National Wool Week throughout the country sometime this fall.

The object of National Wool Week was announced as that of promoting ?a greater interest on the part of the consumers of wool materials and products of all descriptions, and stimulating sales of such articles.? The proposal was enthusiastically received and a committee, representative of the entire trade, is now formulating plans for the successful execution of National Wool Week. The plans ?involve newspaper and trade publicity, window displays, radio speeches, cooperation with government officials and educators, and will include many social functions consisting of dance programs, and open house arrangements.?

Packaged Meats to Carry Government Grade Labels

Packaged meats labeled with a U. S. Department of Agriculture certificate of quality is the latest innovation in the retailing of meats.

Retail sales under this new system which is used by a group of food stores in New York have been reported to department officials as having increased from 20 to 40 percent in individual stores. There are 85 stores in the group.

Consumers in a dozen or more cities now can buy individual cuts of beef and lamb stamped with a government certificate of quality. The service is self-supporting from the standpoint of federal expense as it is paid for by the packers and dealers who use it. Indicative of its growing popularity is the fact that in the last month more than 12,000,000 pounds of beef was government graded and stamped.

Plan for the Big Omaha Lamb Cooking and Cutting Demonstration

An outstanding new feature for the lamb campaign is now definitely assured with the announcement that principal arrangements have been completed for conducting a school of lamb cookery for housewives in Omaha, Neb., from October 5 to 10. Not only will this school offer comprehensive instruction in cooking lamb, as its title indicates, but it also will feature lamb cutting demonstrations. In this way it will cover all phases of the subject of lamb about which the housewife should know in order to take full advantage of the many possibilities of this meat product.

Finishing Lambs for Grower?s Account

An intensive and very significant innovation in the handling of feeder lambs from the range has been inaugurated this year by the Winfield Bank interests of Nevada. Over 100,000 lambs grown by patrons of these banks are being shipped to feeding areas in Kansas on a profit-sharing arrangement. The Kansas farmers furnishing the feed and carrying for the lambs are to receive the final selling price at the market for the gains made. Shipping expense will be charged to the account of the individual growers who, under this arrangement, will receive the difference between the per-pound value of the lamb as a feeder and as a finished product, less the incidental expenses.

This movement contains a great deal of promise for lessening the speculative risks involved in the finishing of lambs and under present conditions seems to offer material advantage to the range breeders.

Expansion of Feeding-in-Transit Privileges

According to an announcement made on September 10, by E. F. Bertling, general agent of the Missouri Pacific in Salt Lake City, feeding-in-transit privileges for livestock from drouth sections of the West have been greatly enlarged by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

By a previous order, the commission authorized the publication of a tariff on sheep originating in California, Nevada and Oregon for feeding in transit at points on the Missouri Pacific in eastern Colorado and Kansas, providing that no freight charges would be made at either points of origin or feeding points on the condition that shippers furnish satisfactory bond that the charges will be met after the sheep are fattened and marketed.

The objective is to give livestock men in the drouth states, where feed is scarce, an opportunity to put their animals in marketable condition in parts of Colorado and Kansas, where feed is plentiful.

The Summer Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Association

One of the principal considerations of the Executive Committee in its regular summer meeting of August 25, in Salt Lake City, was the immediate procedure to be taken in connection with the Eat More Lamb program. The plan prepared and submitted by the Lamb Committee received its complete approval.

The attention of the committee was likewise focused on the grazing question by the August 22 telegram of Secretary of Agriculture Hyde to the governors, senators and representatives of the states in which the national forests are used for grazing. This wire outlined the objections of the Secretary to the request for a reduction in grazing fees for this year.

The need for certain changes in the constitution of the National Wool Growers Association to make possible the more efficient handling of the lamb program was presented by Secretary Marshall, but action was deferred until the meeting of the committee at convention time.

The desirability of standardized grades for lamb and other marketing questions were discussed by President A. T. Spencer of the California Wool Growers Association, and President Lee of New Mexico outline the sheep men?s position in relations to the publication of articles on the game situation in the national forests that are not founded on fact.

Progress in Eat More Lamb Work

The Lamb Committee of the National Wool Growers Association met on the evening of August 24, at the Hotel Utah, in Salt Lake City, to measure up the progress made in organization and fund-raising work since its last session in May and to advance as far as possible the plans for the larger advertising program, scheduled for this year.

While fully cognizant that a $125,000 program, like an ancient city, cannot be built up in a day, the committee felt that the state reports were evidence of the real good cement work that had gone into the foundation, and that with the prospective additional income for the remainder of 1931, a layer or two of bricks might be added.

The lamb program, as now advanced, provides for the continuation of the demonstration work in cooperation with the National Live Stock and Meat Board. Also, it was thought that they payments to come in before the end of 1931 would permit a further expenditure of at least $9,500, part of which would be used for literature for distribution in the western states through the local organizations that have been set up in connection with the fund-raising campaign, and part would go into special unit campaigns in Omaha and in other metropolitan areas along the lines advised by the Tracy-Locke-Dawson firm and with the cooperation of that concern?s experts and the National Live Stock and Meat Board. Special radio broadcasts, newspaper and various other form of publicity are contemplated in this new style program. The first of these unit campaign, that to be put on in Omaha the early part of October, will have the support of the Omaha Bee, a leading newspaper of that city.