The historical ratio for the month of April is 12.7 bushels of such composite corn. Multiply 182.5 cents by 12.7, and we secure $23.18 as the cost of producing hogs for the Chicago market in April of 1918, under the ten-year ratio method. The actual price was $17.45, or a loss of $5.73 per hundredweight. The chart which is published herewith illustrates graphically results secured in the same manner for every month during the ten-year period beginning 1907. Ordinarily, Chicago No. 2 corn measures very accurately the changes in corn value on the farm, the corn out of which hogs are actually made. During part of the winter of 1917–1918, Chicago No. 2 corn ceased to be quite such an accurate measure as usual, for the reason that the quality of the crop was so poor that only a small amount of corn graded No. 2, and for the further reason that there were severe transportation difficulties. Some people have urged not using Chicago No. 2 corn values, but corn values on farms as reported to the United States Department of Agriculture, monthly, by crop reporters. This price is no doubt compiled with considerable accuracy, but is open to objection for the reason that it does not represent a uniform grade. In soft corn years, a bushel of corn as valued by crop reporters on farms is poor stuff. In such years, there is always a wider spread between the farm value of corn and the Chicago No. 2 value than in years when the quality is good. It might do fairly well to take farm values of corn and farm values of hogs if definite grades could be established. If they can not be, it is probably best to take Chicago values of No. 2 corn and heavy hogs as a basis, making allowance occasionally when exceptional conditions arise in the way of artificial prices temporarily created by transportation difficulties, and remembering always that the true point at issue is to apply a ratio between certain grades of actual feed on the one hand and a certain grade of hogs on the other. This is a technical matter which really can not be decided by lawyers or business men, however competent such men may be to run a food administration or a department of agriculture, or by farmers, however competent such men may be to feed hogs. It is a matter which must be handled by men who understand markets and who have had sufficient economic training so that they understand a little something of the making of index numbers, and who have had sufficient touch with agricultural conditions so that they understand a little something of the technique of feeding hogs.