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Excerpt from Agricultural Economics Research, Vol. 19: April 1967 A lesson that cattle futures teaches concerns the origins of futures trading. A widespread belief, shared by the authors, is that a pre condition for successful futures trading is the existence of extensive cash forward dealings in the commodity. The origins of grain futures in to arrive contracts and the origins of futures trading in eggs and butter in various cash dealings show this clearly In more recent times, it is shown by the development of soybean and soybean oil and meal futures from extensive cash forward trading in these commodities. Extensive cash forward dealings in a commodity are presumptive evidence of the economic need for more standardized trad ing methods. But futures trading in fed cattle evidently has developed without appreciable cash forward trading in fed cattle. What did exist were ex tensive dealings in feedlot services. Apparently, we should generalize more broadly: a pre condition for successful futures trading in a commodity is the existence of extensive trans actions ih some economic equivalent, whether it be dealings in the commodity itself or in serv ices that enter into production of the commodity. A separate question of course is whether futures trading could be made technically feasible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.