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Mahaska, Iowa.—It costs to-day four bushels of corn to carry one bushel to New 
York, whereas, if the railroad business was honestly managed, it would require only 
one bushel to take another there. There is no remedy for this trouble this side of the 
halls of Congress at Washington. 
Tama, Iowa.—Hundreds of thousands of acres are, and will continue to be, brought 
into cultivation each year, in the West and Northwest, far more rapidly than markets 
for products are apt to increase. The high freight-tariffs on railroads almost exclude 
western farmers from the markets of the world. 
Grundy, Iowa.—Railroad tariffs are almost double what they were when most of us 
came here to settle. We must abandon raising wheat in this great grain-field of the 
Northwest, and the world must look elsewhere for food. 
Ripley, Ind.—The great trouble with us is that we have to pay as much freight 
from here to Cincinnati, fifty miles, as they do from Vincennes, one hundred and twenty 
miles west of here; and why? Because at the latter place there is another road to 
Cincinnati, hence there is competition; here there is none. 
Saint Louis, Mo.—Causes of discouragement are high prices of land, high prices 
of labor, high taxes, general advance in prices of all articles consumed on the farm, 
and comparatively low prices of farm products. I can conceive of no remedy except 
cheaper transportation to the seaboard. 
Mississippi, Mo.—The greatest cause of discouragement to farmers is at this time the 
very low price of corn and the very high price of railroad transportation. At this 
time, Atlanta, Georgia, and Mobile, Alabama, are our best markets for corn, to trans- 
port which to either place the railroad companies charge 39} cents per bushel; sacks, 
storage, and commission cost 13+ cents per bushel, which, taken from 85 cents, leaves 
323 cents per bushel to the producer; showing that the railroad companies receive 
6% cents more per bushel for carrying the corn some seven hundred miles to market, 
than the farmer does for raising, shelling, sacking, and hauling it to the railroads. 
Nemaha, Nebr.—It costs us an average of 68 cents per bushel to transport corn to 
New York; it sells here at 15 to 18 cents per bushel. If we save the freight on one 
bushel it is equal to raising four. Farmers must refuse to sell grain or stock when the 
price is below the cost of production. 
Montgomery, Kans.—At the rates now charged, a farmer shipping 100 bushels of 
corn from this county to Chicago, our best market, and selling at the market price, 
would not have money to pay the freight, but would actually come out considerably 
in debt. 
Johnson, Kans.—Suppose railroads reduce freight on corn one-half their present 
price, there would be such a quantity thrown into the eastern markets that the price 
would fall there in proportion, so that we would receive but little benefit. 
Minnehaha, Dak.—Farmers look to the Agricultural Department to impress this view 
upon the minds of our Congressmen—that it is useless to try to stimulate the agricul- 
tural energies of the far West while it takes three bushels of corn to send one to mar- 
ket. Such has been my experience while in the country. 
Napa, Cal.—F ruit-growers are discouraged by having a market limited to San Fran- 
cisco, while the markets of the eastern cities would be open to them but for the high 
freights of the transcontinental railroads. Grape-growers would gladly sell Muscat 
and other choice varieties of table-grapes at 2 cents per pound at their vineyards, and 
eastern cities would cheerfully pay from 10 to 15 cents (wholesale) in their markets ; 
but high freights keep the producer and consumer apart. Grape-growers complain 
also of adverse legislation in Congress, by which the waste of their crops cannot be 
utilized by conversion into spirits. On these accounts the vineyard interest languishes. 
» Placer, Cal.—The farmers on the Pacific coast are sorely pressed by a monopoly too 
powerful, we fear, for our efforts to overcome. I refer to the railroad monopoly, com- 
bined with the San Francisco grain-ring. The numberof men in these two monopolies 
does not consist of over one dozen, yet they have such a combination that we farmers 
are entirely at their mercy. The railroad monopoly owns every mile of railroad in the 
State, and have purchased all the steamers and freight vessels on our rivers, and hence 
they have the entire carrying trade in the State, and now charge double for all freight- 
ing they do. The railroad monopoly and grain-ring have swindled the farmers this 
year, in freights and purchasing our grain at less than it was worth, over $12,000,000 
in this State. Our only hope of relief is that Congress will regulate the price of 
freight on the railroad which was built with Government money. That power once 
broken everything else will regulate itself. 
Sonoma, Cal.—Our wheat-raising farmers have much to contend with. As wheat can- 
not be exported in bulk the farmer is compeiled to pay on an average 10 cents per 
bushel for sacks, which aggregates quite a tax on him. Then the local railroads, by a 
high tariff of freights, extort all they can from him; thus, from this place to deep 
water, fifty miles, the rate of freight is $5.50 per ton of 2,000 pounds. Then specula- 
tors in San Francisco, charter, in advance of arrival, all the ships on the way to that 
port, then raise rates of freight 100 per cent., and finally wind up by buying the 
farmers’ wheat at their own price, often not enough to pay all the expenses of its eul- 
