The profits and losses of the big cattlemen of the far-western and southwestern states are not to be measured by such a chart. Their chief expenses are labor and the cost of pasture. Weather conditions affect them directly, whereas weather conditions in the corn belt affect cattle profits indirectly, thru the price of corn. During 1917 and 1918, the western cattle men, with the exception possibly of those in certain sections of the southwest, which suffered from unprecedented drouth in 1917, made unusually good profits. As a class, their profits were probably not as large as the profits of the grain-growing farmers of the middle-west, but were far larger than the profits of the cattle feeders of the middle-west. PACKER PRICES AND THE RATIO METHOD The Chicago packers buy hogs as cheaply as they can and sell the pork as high as they can. Nevertheless, for months at a time they may sell pork products at a loss. Over any long period of time there is a fairly constant ratio between the value of one hundred pounds of live hog flesh and one hundred pounds of lard, ribs or other standard hog products. To simplify matters, and for purposes of illustration, we will consider that standard hog product, dry salt ribs, which makes up about 35 per cent of the live hog. * * * * * As an average of the ten years from 1886 to 1895, dry salt ribs (low-grade bacon) sold for the value of 136 pounds of live hog. During the ten-year period from 1896 to 1905, ribs sold for the value of 137 pounds of live hog. During the ten-year period from 1906 to 1915, they sold for the value of 135 pounds of live hog. But while this ratio is quite constant over any long period of time, it varies considerably according to the season of the year. As an average of the ten-year period of 1907–1916, the ratio was 136 pounds in January, 132 pounds in February, 127 pounds in March, 126 pounds in April, 133 pounds in May, 137 pounds in June, 137 pounds in July, 137 pounds in August, 135 pounds in September, 136 pounds in October, 140 pounds in November, and 139 pounds in December. In April of 1918, hogs averaged about $17.45 per hundredweight. Using the standard ratio for the month of April, of 126 pounds of live hog for one hundred pounds of ribs, we would get as the hog price of ribs $21.97. The actual price was about $23.21, or the packers got for the dry salt ribs in the month of April, 1918, about $1.24 more than the customary ratio. The chart tells the story, extending from 1905 to 1919. The black area above the line might be called packers’ profits and the black area below the line packers’ losses on the manufacture of ribs. As a matter of fact, the packers’ profits in the latter part of 1917 and early in 1918 were probably larger than indicated. This method assumes that the packers’ manufacturing charges rise and fall in the same ratio as hog prices rise and fall.