57 Varieties Go To War

H. J. Heinz Co. (57 Varieties) is going into "large-scale" production of plastic-plywood airplane and glider parts. To this startling announcement the staid, publicity-shy, 73-year-old food processor flatly refused to add a single word. One leaked-out fact: the work will be done on pressure machines formerly used for canning.

Upswing in Meat

U.S. farmers and ranchers will market 35% more meat this year than in 1929, the Department of Agriculture announced happily last week. This year's total will be a smacking 21.7 billion pounds.

Biggest increase is in pork, which accounts for about half of all U.S. meat sales. This year 105,500,000 hogs will be shipped off to slaughter, far & away the biggest killing ever, 24% above last year. Hog raisers got this increase by a very simple process: they kept 1,500,000 sows off the market last year and put no halters on their love life. Since the average sow bears 13 piglets a year, this is adding 20,000,000 porkers to the 1942 supply.

To farmers this huge pig crop is a bonanza, for prices are up too. In Chicago last week hogs hit $14.70 per cwt., highest in 25 years.

Beef and veal production was up 20% in the January-April period, but the full year's output may not show as big a gain. Lamb and mutton marketings show almost no gain. Main reason: sheep are finicky creatures, and nasty weather "impaired" the spring lamb crop. Chicken-ranch owners, meanwhile, have boosted production.

All these increases would ordinarily jam-pack every butcher's showcase in the U.S., mean cheap meat for U.S. citizens. Not this year. The Government is buying 40% of all packer-processed pork, a big (but undisclosed) portion of beef and veal output. Some of this is lend-leased, but the bulk of it is gobbled up by U.S. fighting men.

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