314 STATE BOARD OF AGKICULTUKE. 



price, and the consumers, not the producers, would be the gainers thereby, but 

 at the same time the prices received by the different producers would vary; 

 those receiving tlic most wlio could transport their products the cheapest. 



The actual benefit of any system of transportation is more of a comparative 

 than absolute character. It is rarely that it can be reckoned in dollars and 

 cents ; but if transportation facilities for one place are equal in every respect 

 to those of another, the benefits for those two places arc equal. Thus, if the 

 shipper from Chicago can send to New York as cheaply and conveniently as the 

 shipper within one hundred miles of New York, their benefits are equal, so far 

 as the growing of produce, which is marketed in New York is concerned, and 

 the value of land thus employed should vary directly with its productiveness. 



Means of Iransportaiion. 



Until within a few years the main avenues of transportation were confined to 

 the water, but since the introduction of the railroads, tliey have assumed more 

 and more importance until to-day the railroad is emphatically the main avenue 

 of transportation. Of the internal commerce of the country about 86 per 

 cent is conducted over railroads, the remaining 14 per cent is distributed in 

 varying amounts among our lakes, rivers, and canals. 



Water Communication. 



Canals and channels for artificial water communication generally are too 

 costly for an extensive adoption, and farther, from the experience of the Erie 

 canal and the New York Central Eailroad, it is safe to say that when both 

 canal and railroad system are worked to full capacity, the canal can not com- 

 pete with the railroad either in rates or facilities to shippers. 



Natural water communication can be taken direct advantage of only by 

 towns in favored localities, but indirectly lines of transportation over our 

 natural waters affect all transportation, by modifying the cost (or at least 

 rates), from towns possessing water routes. 



The laws which govern shipments over our natural waters must bo the same 

 as those which govern any business, for true competition can have unlimited 

 action, and in course of time, the average of the rates charged must be such as 

 to give a fair living profit, and no more, for excessive rates would induce a 

 competition that would soon lower them, and very low rates would drive away 

 competition, and so tend to raise them. 



Overland Transportation — Common Roads. 



As lines of water communications can be established and made to pay only 

 in favored localities, we shall give them no further consideration, but turn our 

 attention to the existing means of transportation, overland. The land trans- 

 portation is conducted overeitiier the common road or the railroad. The rail- 

 roads serving as the main channels, which carry the articles when once 

 received, to the distant markets, while the common roads act as feeders, and 

 ^re used mainly in transporting articles a short distance. 



The common roads liave never been used in competition with tlic railroads 

 since tlie railroad system has been fairly established. The capabilities of rail- 

 roads arc so much greater than those of common roads that since IStephcnson 

 perfected the railroad system, and showed practically what might be expected 

 from it, little attention has been paid to the improvement of the common 

 roads. While it is certainly true that it will not pay to invest a great sum in 



