The St. Johns herald., 1919-02-06
Give that Others
 May Live. FEBRUARY 10th To l7th

part or Jne Food Administration with regard to the cO-ordinated purchases of pork products, covered in the at tached, 1t is agreed that the packers dertake not to purchase hogs for less than the following agreed minlmums for the month of November, that is daily minimum of $17.5O per hundred pounds on average of packers droves excluding thrOw-Outs. "ThrOw-outs" to be defined as pigs under 13O pounds, stags, boars, thin sOws and skips. Further that no hogs of any kind shall be bought, except throw outs, at less than $16.50 per hundred pounds. The average of packers drOves to be construed as the average of the total sales in the market of all hogs for a given day. All the above to be based on Chicago.
 We agree that a committee shall be appointed by the Food Administration to check the daily operations in the various markets with view to super
 
 ing out of the above.
 The ability of the packers to carry out this arrangement will depend on there being a normal marketing of hogs based upon the proportionate in crease over the receipts of last year. The increase in production appears to be a maximum of about 15 per cent. and we can handle such an increase.
 If the producers of hogs should. as they have in the past few weeks, pre- maturely market hogs in such increas- ing numbers over the above 1t is en- tirely beyond the ability of the pack CTS to maintain these minimums, and therefore we must have the cO-Opera- ton of the producer himself to main- tain these results. Ii is a physical impossibllity for the capacity of the packing houses to handle a similar over-flOod of hogs and to find a market for the output. The packers are anX- iOus to cooperate with the producers in maintaining a stabiizatiOn of price and to see that producers receive a fair price for their products.
 (Signed) THOS. E. WILSON,
 Chairman Packers Committee.
 The plan embodied above was adopt ed by the conference.
 The Food Administrator has appoint ed a committee, comprising MT. Thom- as E. Wilson, chairman of the Pack CTS Committee; Mir Everett Brown, president of the Chicago Livestock Ex- change; Major Roy of the Food Ad- ministration, Mir. Louis D. Hall of the Bureau of Markets, to undertake the supervision of the execution of the plan in the various markets. COmmiS- sion men are asked to cooperate in carrying out the plan embodied in the packers agreement. It must he evi- dent that offers by commission men 10 sell hogs below the minimum estab- liShed above is not fair, either to the producer or the participating packers. Mir. Brown has undertaken on behalf of the commission rrpn in the United State lat they will loyalty support the plan
 Ii is believed by the conference that this ncH plan, based as it is upon a positive minimum basis, will bring bet ter results to the producer than aver age prices for the month. It does not limit top prices and should narrow the margins necessary to country buy CTS in more variable markets. It is believed that the plan should work out close to SIS average.
 Swine producers of the country will contribute to their own interest by not flooding the market, for it must be evident that if an excessive over per centage of hogs is marketed in any one month price stabiliZatiOn and con- trol cannot succeed, and it is certain that producers themselves can contri- bute materially to the efforts of the conferences if they will do their mark eting in as normal a way as possible.
 The whole situation as existing at present demands a frank and explicit assurance from the cOnferees repre- sented-namely, that every possible effort will be made to maintain a live hog price commensurate with swine production costs and reasonable sell ing values in execution of the declar- ed policy of the Food Administration to use every agency in its control to secure justice to the farmer.
 The stabilization methods adopted for November represent the best eff forts of the conference, cOncurred in Inv tha EOod AdminiStra tiOn and tbo Livestock Subcommittee of the Agri- cultural Advisory Board, together with special swine members and the of the packers, to i'm prove the present unsatisfactory situ- ation, which has unfortunately result