In normal times we regard charts based on principles as stated in this chapter as approximately accurate in measuring packers’ profits and losses in the manufacture of given products. It is conceivable that the normal lard ratios may go lower in the near future. Corn oil, cocoanut oil, cottonseed oil and other tropical vegetable fats are being used as lard substitutes, and as a result lard may sell decidedly below its normal pre-war ratio to hogs. However, in this case the bacon hog will gain in popularity and the supply of lard will be curtailed to a point which will justify a ratio almost as great as existed before the war. MILK PRICE DETERMINATION Just what price farmers should get for their milk has been a peculiarly vexing question. Before the war, farmers selling milk to city dealers were in an unusually weak bargaining position. When their position became intolerable, they organized into powerful bargaining associations, many of which were said to be illegal under strict interpretation of the law. One of the earliest formed and most powerful of these producers’ associations has been the Chicago Milk Producers’ Association, numbering 16,000 members and controlling most of the milk that is shipped into Chicago or manufactured in the district immediately around Chicago. During the years immediately preceding the entry of the United States into the great war, this association bargained directly with the Chicago milk dealers as to what prices the farmer members of the association could get for their milk. They held a successful strike in April of 1916, and thereafter the Chicago milk dealers seemed to regard the association with considerable respect. The city press and the city politicians, however, felt that the farmers were too high-handed in their disregard of certain laws, and forthwith began agitation which finally resulted in indictments against the leaders in the Producers’ Association.