428 ANiNUAL report OF THE Off. Doc. 



US think of some sea monster or whale. They are now being filled 

 with wheat which is poured into their holds by pipes from the ele- 

 vators. 



Thousands of bushels of grain will be stored in a single whaleback 

 vessel within a few hours, and the load it will carry will be more 

 than could be hauled by a train of two horse wagons ten miles in 

 length. The average load of a whaleback is about 70,000 bushels of 

 wheat. 



The chain of Great Lakes forms one of the chief commercial high- 

 ways of the globe. The upper portions of these lakes are frozen 

 during the winter, and for five months they are almost as deserted 

 as the icy seas about the North Pole. It is only during the seven 

 warmer months that ships can navigate them; but in this time more 

 freight is carried upon them than all that is brought into Liverpool 

 or London in a whole year. 



Were it not for these lakes our immense harvests of grain could 

 hardly be taken to the seashore. A whaleback will steam out with 

 its great load of 70,000 bushels of wheat to Buffalo, or it may even 

 pass through the Welland Canal and go on down through Lake On- 

 tario into the St., Lawrence Eiver, and out across the Atlantic to 

 the seaports of Europe. There is a navigable waterway from Duluth 

 to the sea, and if the destination of our whaleback is Liverpool, it 

 will have to travel more than half of its voyage in fresh water 

 before it gets to the Atlantic Ocean, at the Strait of Belle Isle. 



LOW FREIGHT RATES 



The journey can be made so cheaply that for a few cents a bushel 

 of wheat can be brought from the greatest wheat farms in the world, 

 which are located in the heart of North America, to the seaboard, 

 and for thirty cents a ton can be brought from Buffalo back to 

 Duluth. The cost of carrying grain by water in this way is less than 

 one-half the cost of carrying on railroads. It is this cheapness that 

 has caused many towns and cities to spring up at the harbors along 

 the Great Lakes, and due to these cheap freights that the price of 

 wheat is nearly the same in Chicago as in Philadelphia and New 

 York. 



In years to come as population increases and the demand for food 

 becomes greater, it will become necessary for the cereal farmer to 

 pay more attention to maintaining and increasing the fertility of 

 his soil. We have seen soils in our locality, which thirty years ago 

 produced from 25 to 30 bushels of wheat per acre, cropped so fre- 

 quently with wheat that the yield was brought down to 12 to 15 

 bushels per acre. The same land after changing owners, and the 

 owner himself becoming the operator, has restored and finally in- 

 creased the fertility and yield to 32 bushels per acre. What is true 

 in this instance is true and may be in many others. We think that 

 a greater percentage of our farms should be operated by their owners, 

 and it appears that something must be seriously wrong or they 

 would be. 



In many states about 50 per cent, of the farms are operated by 

 tenants. The last census report shows that nineteen counties of 

 Pennsylvania have lost in numbers of people. Iowa, which is strictly 



