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The CHAIRMAN. I was wondering how much longer it would take you. We will probably not stay in session very much longer this evening.

Mr. Goss. I can get through in 10 minutes more, if you do not want to ask questions, except those directly bearing on this subject. The CHAIRMAN. I think you have some charts that we would like to get into the record.

(The charts which Mr. Goss used are reproduced at the end of his testimony.)

Mr. Goss. Here is one on beef cattle [indicating]. The black line indicates the number of beef cattle on farms. The red figures and red line indicate the price, the farm value per 100 pounds. Now, if you will notice, from 1910 how the production line drops down and comes on up again in 1919. If you will notice the price goes up as the production line drops down. It comes on through and above the low production mark [indicating]. In other words does it not indicate to you that supply and demand are having some effect upon it?

Now, let us take wheat. I might state that I picked out these products, which we have charted, because they are the main products of the Central West. They are the ones with which the sheep and wool business must compete most.

The black line indicates production again. Beginning in 1889, jumping the 10-year period, and then taking one year at a time, you notice how during those first years, from 1909 to 1914 or 1915, before the war began, there was a comparatively stable price of wheat. Of course it went on up during the war. Everything went up. are taking these figures before the war conditions entered in. You notice there was only an extreme difference of about 75 cents in the price of wheat for a period of five or six years.

We

Now, take swine. The black line again is the production line. The black figures are the production figures. Over here [indicating] the red figures indicate price and the red line is your price line.

Notice, again, during the same years that we had with wheat from 1909 over to 1914, before the war period, how there was a comparatively stable price, and that when it did vary it varied in proportion to the production. Here is a difference of a little over $1 per hunded. pounds for those five or six years.

Now, let us take corn. The production line fluctuates, and notice that the price ine also fluctuates in proportion to it. In other words, supply and demand is having some effect. Notice that the variation in the prices, however, have not been radical, only perhaps a matter of 10 or 15 cents for those six or seven years-from 1909 to 1914.

Mr. DEWALT. Let me ask you a question there: What is the ratio or per cent of production during those nine years as compared with the per cent of price?

Mr. Goss. We use here for production a scale of every 100,000,000 bushels. Over here on price we use a scale of 10 cents.

Mr. DEWALT. But that does not answer my question. Say that you have 50 per cent increase in production, how much was the per cent increase in price, we will say, in the year 1909, or 1908, or whatever it may be?

Mr. Goss. I could not tell you that. I don't remember. I do not know that that makes any material difference, though. It does

indicate that supply and demand are running in proportion. This chart shows that.

Mr. DEWALT. I don't see how it shows it; unless you have got some figures. The mere drawing of a line up and down would not indicate anything to the committee, I think.

Mr. Goss. Well, we can figure out this percentage basis. We have a difference here of 10 cents in price. We have a difference of 100,000,000 in production. We can take the time to figure that out, but it was worked out and the chart was drawn to proportion, for your convenience so you would not have to bother with figures.

Here is the sheep chart. I made this simply to show the decrease in the production of sheep. This only goes back to 1909 and down to 1920. There was not room to show figures for 1903 when we had 64,000,000 sheep, but you will notice there is a gradual decrease-a total decrease in that length of time of 25 per cent.

Mr. DEWALT. Now, there is a decrease of 25 per cent on the number of sheep.

Mr. Goss. A decrease of 25 per cent in the number of sheep since

1903.

Mr. DEWALT. What was the decrease in price, the price of wool! Mr. Goss. We show only the price of sheep here this is a sheep

map.

Mr. DEWALT. I am talking about the price of wool. You have 25 per cent decrease in the number of sheep; now, what was the decrease in the price of wool during that same period, or the increase, whichever it may have been?

Mr. Goss. You can not figure that definitely, because of this fact, which I am going to show you right now: Here is your wool map [indicating]; figures on the left are the production of wool. On the other map they were the production of sheep. The black line is your production of wool, which dropped down from 1909, as we said before, to 1918. Your price for wool, you will notice, varies; it jumps up and down. There is a fluctuation in price from year to year. Here is a jump from 1910 down to 1911 of from just below 21 cents down to below 16 cents, a fall of 5 cents, and that is on the pound basis. Mr. SIMs. A drop of 5 cents?

Mr. Goss. Yes; a drop, a fluctuation in price.

Mr. DEWALT. Pardon me for asking, but what is the utility of your chart unless you can show that the decrease in the number of sheep produced, comparatively speaking, an increase in the price of wool, and that is a proportionate increase or decrease, as the number of sheep either increased or decreased? If you do not have that upon your chart, it would seem to me that it is very informing, although I may be very much mistaken.

Mr. BARKLEY. Are you able to figure or can you in rough figures give the percentage of increase in the price of wool per pound from 1909 up to 1920 ?

Mr. Goss. From 1909 to 1920? I can give you here the amount of increase.

Mr. BARKLEY. What is wool selling for now?

Mr. Goss. The average price which the cooperative associations sold their wool at during the past year was about 61 cents. That is considerably above the average received for all wool sold from farms. Mr. SIMS. What was it in 1909 ?

Mr. Goss. The average price in 1909 was 17 cents.

Mr. PARKER. According to your chart there the supply and demand has nothing to do with the sheep business?

Mr. Goss. That is the point I am trying to show you, that supply and demand in the wool business does not have much to do with it with the sheep business-that is, with the sheep as a meat product it does.

Here are some of the grades of wool, showing the variation in price [indicating.] Here are two grades which we have taken as representative, Ohio unwashed medium, Ohio unwashed fine. Notice how the prices fluctuate from one year to the next. They went in the case of Ohio unwashed medium from 20 cents in 1901 up to nearly 35 cents in 1905. From 27 cents in 1908 it went to 36 in 1909 and back down the next year. Those are just two of the common grades.

Here is another map showing some of the other grades of wool. They are some of the common, ordinary grades which we have for sale, namely, staple fine, clothing fine, staple medium, clothing medium-notice how these prices have varied from year to year.

In other words, it seems to me that with the staple farm products the indication is from these charts that supply and demand have had more or less effect upon the price; with wool production, supply and demand has not been the factor which has determined the price.

Mr. PARKER. I wish you would turn back to that chart of wool. Your red line is the price?

Mr. Goss. That is the price line [indicating].

Mr. PARKER. And the black line is the production?

Mr. Goss. The black line is the production.

Mr. PARKER. How do you account for the fact that the price goes up there, and the production of wool goes down?

Mr. Goss. I don't account for that. That is what I am trying to show.

The CHAIRMAN. What years are they?

Mr. Goss. Those are from 1909 on to the present.

The CHAIRMAN. I mean when the fluctuation took place, when they began to deviate?

Mr. Goss. That was just before the war, in 1914.

The CHAIRMAN. It might have been due to war conditions?

Mr. Goss. That has been the case with all crops. Wheat jumped up then, corn jumped up, pork jumped up-that was the case with everything.

Mr. PARKER. The thing that surprises me is that you have got a tremendous increase in price there, and right along beside it you have got a decrease in production?

Mr. Goss. Yes, sir; there has been a decrease in production; there has also been an increase in human population as well as price. Mr. PARKER. They go along together until we get this tremendous increase in price, and then production drops off, apparently.

Mr. Goss. Production was dropping off all the way down.

Mr. PARKER. But I mean it dropped off in correspondence with the price, until this last raise, and in the last one you get a raise in price and a decrease in production which I don't understand. I was trying to figure out in my own mind why it was.

A VOICE. Right there the dog interferes in the production.

Mr. PARKER. You would expect that the increase in price would stimulate production instead of dropping it down, because your price goes right on after the chart stops showing production. Mr. ŠIMS. The war price was abnormal.

Mr. WALKER (president of the Ohio Wool Growers' Association). I just want to inform the gentleman on one point, if it is permissible. The point you have in mind is why production went down and price went up. Increasing the number of sheep is a slow process, while decreasing is a very rapid process. If you will notice when the price went down, that was the time men got out of the sheep business; when the price went up the production was not there, because it takes three years to produce a full grown sheep.

Mr. PARKER. I don't want to take any more time, but it is not in accord with what your chart shows. Your chart shows a steady increase in price all the way and a marked falling off in production.

Mr. WALKER. I thought you meant from one year to another. Mr. PARKER. No; I was taking it right along.

Mr. WALKER. That could be brought about if a condition existed one year which caused a very material loss in the price of wool or mutton, and then the flocks would be sent to market. You have reduced production, and you can not get that back under a number of years, because it is a slow process, because they only increase about 80 per cent each year.

Mr. WINSLOW. And then the price would go up?

Mr. WALKER. Then the price would go up because the production is less.

Mr. WINSLOW. And that is the reason the price went up?

Mr. WALKER. That is one reason. War conditions is another

reason.

Mr. Goss. Last Saturday I was down to a meeting at the Kansas State Agricultural College of live stock producers. There were about 1,000 or 1,500 producers there, and in some way or other it leaked out through the head of the sheep department that I was coming down here. Those men of their own accord unanimously voted this expression:

Tell the Interstate Commerce Committee that we favor the "Truth in Fabrics" bill because we believe it will make sheep husbandry stable.

I believe that the French bill, this Truth in Fabrics bill, will tend to stabilize the prices of wool, because it will allow the factor of supply and demand to operate, as it does with other things.

Now, you are in a hurry, and I will stop there, gentlemen.

(The charts to which Mr. Goss referred are herewith reproduced:)

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