Easy on the Butter

War-booming America drank more milk than ever this summer, 16% more than last year.

Even 26,303,000 cows (825,000 more than last year's record herds) cannot keep up with demand like that, so the U.S. can expect a milk shortage by the time snow covers the pastures.

When the shortage comes there will still be milk to drink, for fluid milk fetches so much better prices that more will be diverted from manufactured milk.

Consequently the pinch will come first in butter, cheese, and ice cream. Last week's shortage news:

> The Agricultural Marketing Administration expects butter may have to be rationed early next year. Already the highest prices since 1929 (45-c- a Ib. wholesale) are cutting demand, but there is 25% less butter in cold storage now than a year ago.

> Cheese may soon be back on the scarcity list, though just last August the stores were staging a great "Victory special" drive to unload the cheese surplus.

> Cream deliveries in New York City were cut as independent marketers stopped sales to stores in protest against the third farm price increase since March. With prices at the farm boosted by the Department of Agriculture to stimulate production, and retail prices held down by OPA to prevent inflation, Borden's figured the squeeze on milk & cream was costing distributors $800,000 a month in the New York area.

>Borden's began pushing "medium" cream (28% butterfat) instead of "heavy" cream (40% butterfat) to ease the butter shortage.

> Ice cream--typical American symbol of free spending--has been banned entirely in England, may be cut down here. Consumption has climbed from 1.97 gallons per capita in booming 1929 to over 3 gallons this year.

Best news about milk was that the shortage was breaking down the milkshed barriers which local dairy lobbies had fostered for years to keep out competition from other sections. Consumers in Washington, for example, are being allowed to know that it is safe to drink milk from Indiana. The South is getting milk from as far away as Wisconsin. The plea that only local milkshed milk is sanitary had become an outright racket, and the racketeers are afraid that after the war it will be hard to get the old milkshed barriers raised again.

This year's 60 billion quarts of milk is 3% more than last year's, but next year production will probably be down. Main reason: shortage of dairy hands is forcing farmers to adjust production to the number of milkers they can hire.

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