Again, a Bumper Year

The well-fed U.S. has been eating high off the hog for years, and paying a high tariff for the privilege. Last week, retail meat prices, which had edged up during the winter decline in slaughtering, were coming down again. Pork packers were glum because of a poor Easter trade; a big New York pork plant closed last week, and hog prices sank to their lowest level ($19.50 per 100 Ibs.) since OPA's end. Because of abundant grain for feeding, this year's beef was also coming down, and was a better grade than last year's. At $24.60 per 100 Ibs., good steers were $1.50 below a month ago. Even lamb, forced to an alltime high partly by heavy losses in the winter storms, was slipping again in Chicago markets last week.

But the big news in food came out of the Agriculture Department. In its new crop forecast for 1949, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics estimated-normal or bumper crops of almost everything. BAE estimated the winter wheat crop at a whopping 1,019,686,000 bu., well over last year's 990,098,000, and second only to 1947's record 1,068,048,000 bu. With good weather and a probable 325-million-bu. carryover from the 1948 crop, the U.S. would be up to its ears in wheat by summer. What with good crops and lower prices, the Bureau predicted, farm income might drop 10% below last year's record of $31 billion.

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