Mirage

It was like old times last week in Chicago's drab, drafty South Side: the number of beef cattle arriving at the slaughter houses was the highest for any week in February in 26 years. Busy drovers and commission men tallied a total of 57,565 head.

But this prospect of more beef failed to cheer dapper, brisk George A. Eastwood, 65, president of Armour & Co. In words as sharp as a cleaver stroke, Eastwood told Armour stockholders that total packinghouse production would probably drop 15% in 1945.

Few packers disagreed with Eastwood's gloomy forecast. The rush of cattle to market was temporary. Apparently it was just the disgruntled cattle raisers' and feed-lot operators' way of expressing their dissatisfaction with the new ceiling of $18 a 100 lbs. on cattle. The feeders were saving expensive feed by selling their stock, and in their hurry to get out from under, they were shipping animals that averaged 40 to 65 lbs. less than 1944's marketing weights. Should the feed-lot operators trim their herds too sharply, the gristle-tough outlook would be for something close to a meat famine this summer.

The supply of other types of meat will be just as lean, Armour's Eastwood reported. Said he: "Our best information now is that we will have 30% fewer hogs than came to market in 1944. The lamb outlook is for a reduction of 14%."

This week the American Meat Institute went Packer Eastwood one better. A.M.I. reckoned that, during the second quarter of this year, civilians will get only 151 million lbs. of meat a week v. 263 million lbs. a week last year.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.