The producers’ ratios, as described in preceding chapters, have to do fundamentally with supply conditions. They deal with the relation between a raw product and a more finished product. They are concerned, but not immediately, with demand conditions. The attempt in this chapter is to develop a ratio which gives more particular weight to demand conditions. Therefore, ratios are developed between a standard index number on the one hand and a given commodity on the other. However, because index numbers include some of the items of expense entering into the production of any commodity, such a ratio also represents to a considerable extent a producers’ ratio. To understand the matter more definitely, we shall look into the ratio actually prevailing between Dun’s index number and Chicago hog prices. As an average of the ten-year period, 1907–1916, Dun’s index number in January has averaged $120.16, whereas hogs during the same period have averaged $6.99 per hundredweight. In other words, live hogs have sold per hundredweight for about one-seventeenth of the value of Dun’s index number. On this basis, in January of 1907, the index price of hogs was $6.24, whereas the actual price was $6.60, or 36 cents higher. In January of 1908, the index price of hogs was $6.59, whereas the actual price was $4.45, or $2.14 lower. And so it goes. For the period of a year or two, hogs will sell proportionately higher than other commodities, and then for a like length of time they will sell lower. This is graphically illustrated in the accompanying chart. This chart, it will be noted, is very similar in appearance to the corn-hog ratio chart. The chief point of difference is in 1917 and 1918, during which time hogs sold relatively higher than an average of other commodities, as indicated by Dun’s index number, whereas they were relatively lower than corn. War conditions, creating an unprecedented demand for breadstuffs, raised grain prices out of all proportion to other commodities. On studying this chart closely, it will be noticed that there is a tendency, generally speaking, for hogs to sell relatively cheap to other commodities a few months in advance of the time that they sell relatively cheap to corn, and vice versa. In other words, the variations shown on the chart as given in this chapter are often two or three months ahead of the chart as given in the chapter on corn-hog ratios. [Illustration: Illustrating the departure of Chicago hog prices from the ten-year ratio between hog prices and Dun’s index number. ] A historical study of the ratio between index numbers and Chicago steer prices indicates that steer prices swing first above and then below their index number value in periods of from five to nine years each way, with an average of around seven years. The 1907–1916 ratio between Dun’s index number and wholesale prices of certain farm products is given in the following table: