THE PIONEERS OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY 21 



in 1825 that "corn, sweet potatoes, melons, and all northern 

 fruit, with the exception of apples, flourish here; though the 

 planters find the great staples, cotton and sugar, so much 

 more profitable than other kinds of cultivation that many of 

 them calculate to supply themselves with provisions almost 

 entirely from the upper country." An English traveler in 

 the southwest in the '50's had a similar comment to make: 

 "Strange to say, it is more difficult to raise the requisite 

 quantity of provisions for a southern plantation than to manu- 

 facture wagons, plows, houses, and articles of clothing. The 

 bacon is almost entirely imported from the northern states, as 

 well as a considerable quantity of Indian corn." 



The extent of this commerce between the northwest and 

 the south it is impossible to ascertain with accuracy, for 

 there are no reliable statistics of it as a whole. The rapid 

 growth in the number of steamboats on western rivers, espe- 

 cially the number running between the Ohio and upper Missis- 

 sippi and New Orleans, indicates a corresponding increase in 

 the trade between these sections. Steamboats on the western 

 rivers increased from 20 in 1818 to 200 in 1829, 450 in 1842, 

 and 1,200 in 1848, while their size and carrying capacity was 

 also increasing. Besides this a large amount of flatboat ton- 

 nage existed, and a considerable part of the produce of the 

 Ohio valley was sent to market by this means. In 1845 the 

 flatboat tonnage amounted to 620,000 tons, and the steamboat 

 tonnage to 1,262,000 tons. The number of steamboat arrivals 

 at New Orleans from the Ohio and upper Mississippi are not 

 separated from the total arrivals before 1859, but in that year 

 they were about 1,500 out of a total of 4,000. The value of the 

 produce received at New Orleans increased from $8,700,000 in 

 1816 to $26,000,000 in 1830, $50,000,000 in 1841, and $185,- 

 000,000 in 1860. Between 1816 and 1820 about 61 per cent 

 of this tonnage was from produce from the northwest. The 

 proportion, though not the total amount, of farm produce 

 declined until it reached 28 per cent in 1860. The steady 

 growth of the river towns which handled this trade also indi- 

 cates its growth. Thus Cincinnati increased from 9,600 in 

 1820 to 115,000 in 1850, Louisville from 4,000 to 43,000, and 

 St. Louis from 4,900 to 77,000. It was estimated in 1845 that 



