Word: cattlemen
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...Cotton opened prematurely. Corn was about 57% of normal. Peanuts were expected to be a total loss. Wheat was less than half of last year's production (29 million bu. v. 61 million bu.). Pastures and stock ponds dried up, made the feed shortage so acute that many cattlemen were sending their livestock to market ahead of schedule...
...Cattlemen protested, got out their rifles again, but to no avail. John Mohler moved ruthlessly on, stamping out every trace of the disease. It spread to the mountains of California, where no graves could be dug. John Mohler herded the cattle into canyons, blasted rock from the hillsides to cover their carcasses. It spread to deer in the Stanislaus National Forest. For twelve months, John Mohler's patient men stalked the forest, using rifles with silencers to avoid scattering the deer, killed every member of a herd of 22,000. In the two epidemics, 280,000 cattle, swine, sheep...
...More black-market meat (as packers refused to buy cattle at the cattlemen's price, black-market dealers snapped it up; the rise in beef points broadened their retail market...
Reason for all this was simple. Packers, who must sell at a ceiling price, refused to pay the high prices asked for cattle on the hoof. Cattlemen, blessed with the best pasture land in years because of the drenching spring rains, were content to let stock graze and fatten. Only hopeful note: when the hot drought days scorch the pasture lands, cattlemen will stampede to the markets, easing shortages in thousands of city butcher shops...
Scandal. For this inexcusable condition, the nation's farmers, cattlemen, canners and many a public official had but one point of blame: a fantastically mixed-up Government food policy, pulled and hauled among nine agencies...