I have always wondered how cattle, hog, and egg prices have changed during this century, but have never seen anyone graph these prices in the years before 1970. The reason is that those prices are difficult to obtain.
Today I spent all of this morning going through old statistical abstracts entering these data and made the following graph. Note that the prices are real 2002 prices. Egg and hog prices have fallen faster than cattle prices, but all have fallen significantly. The decline in egg prices is especially noticeable, and is due to modern production techniques such as advanced feed formulations and confined production facilites. Also especially noticable is the decline in price volatility from the 1980's forward.
