There Is Also The Direct Communication From Lake
Erie, By The New York And Erie Railway To New York.
I have more
especially alluded to the trade of Buffalo, because I have been
enabled to obtain a reliable
Return of the quantity of grain and
flour which passes through that town, and because Buffalo and
Chicago are the two spots which are becoming most famous in the
cereal history of the Western States.
Everybody has a map of North America. A reference to such a map
will show the peculiar position of Chicago. It is at the south or
head of Lake Michigan, and to it converge railways from Wisconsin,
Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. At Chicago is found the nearest water
carriage which can be obtained for the produce of a large portion
of these States. From Chicago there is direct water conveyance
round through the lakes to Buffalo, at the foot of Lake Erie. At
Milwaukee, higher up on the lake, certain lines of railway come in,
joining the lake to the Upper Mississippi, and to the wheat-lands
of Minnesota. Thence the passage is round by Detroit, which is the
port for the produce of the greatest part of Michigan, and still it
all goes on toward Buffalo. Then on Lake Erie there are the ports
of Toledo, Cleveland, and Erie. At the bottom of Lake Erie there
is this city of corn, at which the grain and flour are transhipped
into the canal-boats and into the railway cars for New York; and
there is also the Welland Canal, through which large vessels pass
from the upper lakes without transhipment of their cargo.
I have said above that corn - meaning maize or Indian-corn - was to
be bought at Bloomington, in Illinois, for ten cents (or five
pence) a bushel. I found this also to be the case at Dixon, and
also that corn of inferior quality might be bought for four pence;
but I found also that it was not worth the farmer's while to shell
it and sell it at such prices. I was assured that farmers were
burning their Indian-corn in some places, finding it more available
to them as fuel than it was for the market. The labor of detaching
a bushel of corn from the hulls or cobs is considerable, as is also
the task of carrying it to market. I have known potatoes in
Ireland so cheap that they would not pay for digging and carrying
away for purposes of sale. There was then a glut of potatoes in
Ireland; and in the same way there was, in the autumn of 1861, a
glut of corn in the Western States. The best qualities would fetch
a price, though still a low price; but corn that was not of the
best quality was all but worthless. It did for fuel, and was
burned. The fact was that the produce had re-created itself
quicker than mankind had multiplied. The ingenuity of man had not
worked quick enough for its disposal.
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