Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-09-14
OF MEAT
 ARE ID ADVANCE
California Sends Stock Buyers to Ari- zona and Texas in Vain Quest-Coast Cities Are Paying First Increase of One Cent on All Cuts.
A Los Angeles paper says:


 Prices of meat are going up with 8 rush within the next few weeks. Los Angeles will pay more for its steaks chops, roasts and boiling pieces during the coming winter than it has ever paid before. An enormously increased de mand and remarkably decreased sup ply are the causes. Cattle never before were so scarce on the coast. Advances have already been made practically of n cent pound all around. The whole saler, the retailer and the consumer are in the same boat. Natural conditions are blamed by focal experts. They deny any trade combination to advance the prices.
 It matters not whether the taste be for beef, pork, mutton, veal or lamb the squeeze will be just as tight.
 Stock buyers say it is next to i'm possible now to obtain more than enough animals on the hoof to supply the immediate demand. They confess to good deal of skepticism as to the whereness of the winter supply. The coast states have been secured and the packers and market men are reaching far afeld in a seemingly vain effort to find what they seek.
 Ordinarily this is season of the year just at summer s close-when cattle hogs and sheep are plentiful and cheap After few months of green feed the animals are fat and the stock raisers part with them at a lower price per pound, the increased weight more than compensating for the cut in the pound rate.
 But it is different now. Instead of the thousands of fat animals awaiting slaughter, there is a very great short age. Dealers say it is bound to get worse as the winter season comes and the usual necessity arises for feeding stock animals with more expensive pro, vender.
 Prices on all stock, say the local dealers, are several cents per pound more than is usual at this time.
 There was a time, not many years ago when Southern California furnished all the mutton that was desired for local eonsumption-whe the sites of Pasa. dena and other prosperous cities were nothing but ranges for countless sheep; when ranches of thousands of acres in this vicinity were roamed by bands of cattle.
 But advancing civilization has eaten the stock and has converted the range and the ranch into town lots and bus. ting cities, whence comes demand for even more meat than there was before
 It used to be, only recently, that Texas could be depended upon for am. pie shipments of cattle when the local supply was short, but the Lone Star state has experienced dry spell and we can look for no relief from that quarter.
 A number of San Francisco buyers who heretofore have drawn their sup ply from Nevada and Arizona, were in Los Angeles a few days ago, returning from Texas, whither they had gone in quest of stock. Their errand was com paratively fruitless.
 The great feeding grounds in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys have been drawn upon until they are depleted of stock and Imperial valley, the newer and promising stock country, is coming through with everything it can spare.
 Sheep are shipped in here in large number now from Utah, but the freight is high, and this on top of the advanced cost of the meat to the dealer, naturally causes the consumer to look upon choice lamb or mutton as if it were pate de foi gras.
 It has got so that the buyers go to a stock raiser with large number of ewes and contract with him at speci- fled prices for the lambs that may be expected in the usual course of events.
 Hogs are shipped in here from Sioux City, Iowa, at cost of cents pound. live weight. From packer to butcher the pork is sold at from II to 12 cents 2 pound.
 The price of fat cattle advanced in the months of July and August, some thing heretofore unknown. They still are going up. If the gait is maintained the COW may yet jump over the moon.
 "The time has passed" said local retailer, "when person can expect to get good-sized chunk of sirloin, soup bone and piece of dog meat for ! dime. There are good many reasons for this. With prosperity, people are eating more meat; the population of the entire country is growing constantly and there is tremendous increase in the yearly consumption of meats of all kinds.
 At the same time the great ranges of the west are rapidly disappearing through one cause and another, and there is constant decrease in the pro luction of stock animals.
 ''I believe that few retailers of meat have made money in Los Angeles this summer. I know that number have failed-thirty, I have been told. It will be hard for many more this winter, for people will cut down their orders under