Weekly Farm r .

Weekly Farm r .

Price Outlook

(This la the way prospects for Virginia farm prices looked to the Virginia Department of Agricaltnre on Friday. The Department offers it to farmers with the warning that no one can predict prices and be right all the time.)

Turkeys

For the next week or ten days turkey prices will tend towards slightly lower adjustments.

In retail markets turkeys have not been featured in recent weeks. Purchases for the school lunch program have just begun. Last year USDA purchase about four per cent of production, but for the three preceding years school lunch purchases averaged only about two per cent.

Price trends over the last four years show a gradual rise, beginning in early October and continuing to mid-November.

From a supply standpoint the September-December volume of turkeys is expected to be about ten per cent smaller than last year this period. This is based on 15 per cent fewer pounds in cold storage September 1 and projected slaughter at about eight per cent below a year earlier.

The national turkey crop is expected to be 15 per cent smaller than 1961 while Virginit’s crop is down 24 per cent, Virginia growers, however, have made a big shift to heavy type birds.

Current prices list small type turkeys at 25 cents per pound, heavies 24 H to 25 cents, and heavy toms 21 to 22 cents per pound.

Hay

Demand should remain strong for Virginia hay. The movement to Maryland, Pennsylvania and northern markets has reversed the usual flow due to severe dry weather in those areas.

It has been estimated that hay production is down 40 per

[cent in Pennsylvania and is off i approximately one-fourth in adjoining states. Northern counties in Virginia have been affected and some livestock have been on roughage feed for two or three months.

There is no reason to believe