Norwich bulletin., 1922-12-25
HOLIDAY RETAIL TRADE
 WAS DISTINCTLY ACTIVE

New York. Dec. 24 (By the A. P.)-i While the holiday season has served tol quiet the chief financial markets appre- ciably during the past week, it has brought distinctly active retail trade and has had remarkably little checking effect on the major industries. Thus steel production continues to approxi- mate 80 per cent of capacity and trade reports stae that the year end ciosing down of plants will be for br1efer per iods than usually is the case. Most o6 the producers will reopen their plans Tuesday rather than wait the week with more commonly elaOses bstore opera tions are resumed.
 Steel makers are confident. further more, that their present satisfactory scale of operations will be maintained throughout the first quarter or the new year. Order books are fairly well filled and prices of finished products remain firm. Even pig iron prices, which have been receding ever since the coal shortage began to be relieved. have ! turned upward, circumstance winch suggests that the bottom of this mar ket. for which both buyers and sellers have been reaching for a number of in h~rdening the pig iron market is a stifening in coke prices. which in turn is due to a quickened demand for soft coal with the advent of cold weather. Railroad car loadings meanwhile c6d. tinues to hold up remarkably we'll d. though the normal seasonal sfacke1ing is making itseR felt. Loadings for the week ended December aggregated S20,0oo cars, which is 17s,o00 cars more than were loaded in the corresponding week year ago and s2,oe0 cars more sa alz aa the railroads were setting record for i traffic movement Bitumincus coal production is being maintained at the rate of 11060, 900 tons 3 week and the amount made available to industry seems wholly adednate to all reasonable needs.
 Commodity prices have shown dis. tinct strength during the past week Both cotton and wheat Rttained neH high levels for the year. Insistent buy. ing of the mort distant futures carried May up to approximately 2s l-2 cents it apparently was based on the idea that a 10.ee0,oe0 bale crop and the present rate Of consumption which is high, means shortage before new cot, ton can be obtained from another crop A census bureau report placed the amount of cotton ginned to Decen1bei 13 at S,4SS.o09 bafes, and this wal taken as confirming prevalent views SE tc the final yield.
 influences were mixed in the wheat market and it seems probable that tht frmness in prices was due largely t general optimism. Thus the departineni 1 of agriculture revised it's estimates fol the 1922 crop upward, adding Asome 45. 100000 bushels. It's first report on ths new winter wheat crop placed the acre age at slightly more than 4s,000. .00c acres and the condition at 7s.5 per cent As compared with the figures for ths previous crop. acreage is reduced aboui ] three per cent and condition increased i by like amount. This first estinatt is only, of course, snggestiye.
 1 As the holidays appTnached the ab sence. of any pressnre to liquidate was noticeable in the several msFarets Tech, nical conditions apparently had beeI greatly improved during the past tEc months. Most observers are lookinl forward to the new year ip 2 cheerfU mood.