180 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



less to Baltimore and 81 per ton less to Philadelpliia than to Is aw York 

 on ail eastern-bound freight from competing points in the West. A 

 drawback of GO cents per ton was also allowed on corn exported making 

 the cost of placing western corn on shipboard at Baltimore 7,28 cents 

 per bushel and at Philadelphia 4.24 cents less than jNTew York, while 

 the ocean-freights showed scarcely any percaptible diftereuces. These 

 discriminations, with other expedients by the southern lines, drew an 

 immense amount of trade from quarters that had formerly patronized 

 the isew Y'ork roads. The eastward movement of flour and grain by 

 lake and caniil via Buffalo fell from 50,854,070 bushels in 1873 to 

 27,773,977 bushels in 187G, or nearly one-half. The cost of winter -trans- 

 port in the more genial southern railway belt is an important advantage, 

 of which the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania Central lines have 

 availed themselves to the utmost. The erection of large elevators at 

 Baltimore and Philadelphia, and the general enlargement of facilities 

 for foreign shipment at these two cities, have given special inducements 

 to the grain-shippers of the West to choose these shorter lines to sea- 

 board. How long this competition between rail and water routes will 

 continue is a matter of speculation. During the year, shippers began to 

 complain of lack of accommodations. It was stated that several of the 

 railways were storing their cars on side-tracks and refusing to furnish 

 facilities for transport except at higher rates. It was urged that the 

 necessity of hauling so many extra cars westward, added to the cost of 

 eastward transport, left no margin of profit, if indeed it did not entail a 

 loss. 



The supremacy of !tsew York as an outport of our foreign trade in 

 cereals is rapidly waning. In 1870 she retained but 48 per cent, of a trade 

 which she once practically monopolized. How this will be when business 

 shall have renewed its tone and our foreign-import trade its former rel- 

 ative dimensions, it is impossible to predict. The other great Atlantic 

 ports are making strenuous efforts to retain and to enlarge that portion 

 of the export trade which they have secured. New York capitalists have 

 had their attention challenged to this great loss in their trade by the city 

 press. The immense cost of transporting freight across Manhattan 

 Island, which is alleged as one of the special difficulties at this point, 

 estimated by the Shipping List at $20,000,000 per annum, is a tax upon 

 the city trade which is difficult to understand, considering that a water- 

 transport around the city is practicable, and that, if necessary, exi)orts 

 could be shipped from elevators on the west bank of the Hudson. 



The tendencies to centralization of trade seem to have reached their 

 limit, and now opposite tendencies begin to prevail. The indications of 

 the present are that the opening of new grain-lields in the South and 

 West wiU place our production in different relations to the lines of com- 

 munication, and will cause a greater difiusion of this important traffic 

 to different outlets at various points on our Atlantic coast. 



The statistics of our leading grain-markets are given herewith. 



NEW YORK. 



The aggregate receipts of grain, flour, and meal at Xcw York during 

 1870 were 95,010,503 bushels, against 91,085,890 in 1875, an increase of 

 4.1 per cent. Of this aggregate, 49.97 per cent, were v.-heat and flour, 

 against 57 per cent, in 1875 ; the actual decline of these items was 

 0,020,934 bushels, or 12.28 per cent, from the receipts of 1875. Corn 

 and corn-meal constituted 28.92 per cent, of the receipts, against 25 per 



