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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



water, at 408. per imperial quarter ; sixty or seventy shillings 

 per quarter could not be afforded for the same wheat if 

 forwarded to London by special train ; while Lothian cattle 

 might be sent indifferently from Leith by rail or steamboat, as 

 taking steamboat risk and time into account, and, above all, the 

 intrinsic value of the cattle, th2 railroad transportation would 

 probably be the cheaper way of sending these to market. 



Thus, while cattle, beef, pork, tallow, lard, and hides, and 

 innumerable other things, are carried eastward by the railroads, 

 through snowy forests and over snowy plains, the staff of life 

 is let alone. Now and again, there is a bare margin for job 

 lota of Hour from Cliicago to New York, or Boston, or 

 Montreal ; but scarcely a sack of wheat or corn is ever carried, 

 during winter, from the region of the lakes to the Atlantic 

 seaboard. 



Further light will, perhaps, be thrown upon this important 

 question by a few figures. The distance between Chicago and 

 New York, by railroad, we shall say, is one thousand miles, 

 and by lake and Erie canal, fifteen hundred miles. During the 

 past summer, wheat was carried, by lake and canal, from 

 Chicago to New York, at fifteen cents, or seven pence half- 

 penny per sixty pounds, and flour at fifty cents, or two shillings 

 per barrel. By railroad the regular tariff would have been — 

 wheat fifty cents, or two shillings per bushel of sixty pounds, 

 and flour one dollar and fifty-five cents, or six shilliugs and 

 five-pence halfpenny per barrel. 



Or, again : Chicago is one thousand miles distant from New 

 York by railroad, and fifteen hundred miles by water. The 

 coat per ton per mile, by railroad, would be three farthings, 

 and the cost by water one-sixth of a penny only. The cost 

 of a ton of wheat, flour, or any other thing, by the two 

 different ways, would have been as follows : 



By Railroad. By Water. 



From Chicago to New York. From Chicago to New York. 

 1,000 miles at Jd. £3 23. 6d. 1,500 miles at Jd., £1 Oa. lOd. 



The disadvantage of western railroads, in the matter of 

 transporting grain to the seaboard, is therefore patent, and 

 there is little hope of their ever being so employed. 



Before leaving this branch of the subject, it is proper to 

 remark that a pamphlet appeared in Buffalo last summer, 

 directing the attention of American railroad companies to the 

 advantage and economy that would result from a railroad clear- 

 ing house on the English model; and the writer, Mr. Dartnell, 

 went the length of saying, that with a clearing house, American 

 railroads could compete succeasfuUyly with water carriage. After 

 what has just been stated, the effort at competition must, in the 

 nature of things, be a hopeless one ; and is Mr. Dartnell 

 not aware that there are insuperable state difficulties, in the 

 way of securing compulsory united action among American 

 railroads? In Canada even, everything is so inextricably 

 interwoven with politics, or political patties, that it is not 

 obligatory on one railroad to connect and transport the 

 passengers and baggage or the freight of any other ; and it 

 is questionable whether such a proposition would be entertained 

 by the provincial Legislature. 



The fact then that Western and Canadian railroads can do 

 nothing towards the development of the agricultural resources 

 of the West, further than transport immigrants and baggage, 

 the question naturally arises, What is to be done ? The enlarge- 

 ment of the Erie, the Welland, and the St. Lawrence canals ; 

 the construction of the Caughuawagna to connect the waters of 

 the St. Lawrence with the Hudson river ; the opening of the 

 Ottawa into Lake Huron, and the connection of Lake Ontario 

 with the Georgian Bay ;— these, all of these together, can do 

 nothing, when perfected, towards the movement of a single bag 

 of wheat to the Atlantic seaboard, after the 15th November, 

 when insurances expire upon the lakes. The Victoria bridge at 

 Montreal, that other leviathan of British folly, is to be more 

 powerless even than the frozen lakes and rivers; and at some 

 future time, when Europe feeU the pinch of hunger, while the 

 West is filled with plenty, must we wait contentedly for bread, 

 until the cold arctic breath of Illinois has been warmed and' 

 melted in the summer sun. 



The last natural feature of the North American continent, 

 which it is necessary to name in this connection, is the great 

 watercourse, reaching from the Gulf of the St. Lawrence 

 back to the Saskatchewan and the sources of the Missouri 

 m the Rocky Mountaina, and diverging southward into 



one great trunk streara: mingling the waters of the St. 

 Lawrence and the Mississippi, in the Gulf of Mexico. 



The line of this watercourse is easily traced upon the 

 map, beginning either with the Gulf of tlie St. Lawrence or 

 the Gulf of Mexico. Starting from the latter, and following 

 the course of the Mississippi some thirteen hundred miles, 

 we reach the broad outline of a navigable river, winding 

 round the extreme southern point of the State of Illinois, 

 and forming the line of separation between Kentucky and 

 that State. Leaving the Missisippi, and following the 

 course of that river — the Ohio— we find it skirting Indiana 

 and Ohio, and separating these States from Kentucky and 

 Virginia, and ultimately, by canals, forming connections 

 with Lake Erie. The principal rivers discharging into the 

 Ohio are the Cumberland and the Tennessee, both of which 

 open up Kentucky to the river trade, and the Wabash, 

 which is navigable for nearly four hundred miles along the 

 boundary line of Illiuois and Indiana. Mr. Ellet, in his re- 

 port to Congress, says, that by the outlaj- of a few million 

 dollars in the improvement of the channels of the Missis- 

 sippi and Ohio rivers, large ocean ships could find their way 

 to Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, a river distance, inland, of 

 over two thousand miles. As it is, the whole country 

 beyond Pittsburgh to Lake Erie, and the country watered 

 by the Wabash, and the other rivers of the Ohio, are alike 

 tributary to New Orleans, and numerous well appointed 

 fleets of steam-boats bear testimony to the existence of an 

 enormous trade. 



Returning to the Mississippi, we reach the confluence of 

 the Missouri, some two hundred miles higher up than 

 Cairo, The Missouri, at that point, forms by far the 

 most lengthened and important arm of the Mississippi, 

 and that circumstance has led travellers to express regret 

 that Missouri has not been the name ot the great trunk 

 river. That, however, is a small matter, but points to the 

 magnitude of the almost unknown region, watered by the 

 ^Missouri and its numerous tributaries. It has been said 

 that the Missouri forms a junction with the Mississippi, 

 after three thousand miles meandering from its sources 

 in the Ilocky Mountains, and opens to all but uninterrupted 

 navigation two thousand five hundred miles of fertile coun- 

 try. The principal tributaries are the White Earth, the 

 Yellow Stone, the Platte, the Kansas, and the Osage; and 

 in congressional reports, the whole area drained by the Mis- 

 souri, back from the junction with the ^Mississippi, issaid to 

 be in the neighbourhood of six hundred thousand square miles. 



The Mississippi, above the conflueuce of the Missouri, is 

 said, on the same authority, to drain 184,500 square miles ; 

 and is fed by the Illinois, the Dea Moines, the St. Croix, and 

 innumerable other navigable rivers, which rise in Iowa, Wis- 

 consin, and Minnesota. Short portages, it is scarcely neces- 

 sary to say, connect the Upper Mississippi with the Red River 

 of the north. Lake Winnepeg, and the Saskatchewan — water- 

 courses which perhaps drain a greater and not less fertile area 

 than the united areas of the Missouri and Upper Mississippi. 



Thus the most fertile portion of the North American Con- 

 tinent — the north, west, and south — is traversed by innume- 

 rable great rivers, all of which, ultimately at least, w^ill unite 

 their waters in the channel of the Mississippi ; and when that 

 channel has attracted the capital and ingenious resource of the 

 United States, the largest ships afloat, not excepting the Great 

 Eastern, may safely steam two thousand miles, or more, inland 

 from the Gulf of Mexico.* 



* I. — Extreme Depths of the Mississippi in the 



High Water of 1850. 

 Points of observation — Feet. 



Cape Girardeau, about 1^ mile above 66 5 



Above mouth of the Ohio River, about t.ro miles.. 77 5 

 At M'Master's plantation, about 11 miles below 



New Orleans 1000 



Sauve's plantation, above the crevasse 135-0 



Uuder the Bluffs, Grand Gulf 2000 



II. — Section of the Mississippi between Banks. 



IN THE High Water of 1850. 

 Points of observation — Feet. 



Below mouth of the Ohio River, about 1 mile . . 235-333 



Below Memphis, half a mile ,, 143-212 



Average Section from the mouth of the Ohio to 



New Orleans (thirty different observations) , . 200-000 

 -^Elht's Congressional Report. 



