THE TRANSPORTATION OF WHEAT 101 



the early decades of the nineteenth century, the main trans- 

 portation of grain was by way of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers 

 to the Gulf. Buffalo handled less flour than New Orleans as 

 late as 1840. New Orleans received 221,000 barrels of flour in 

 1832, and this rose to over a million annually in the sixth 

 decade. The Erie canal, opened in 1825, turned the cereal 

 movement eastward to New York, and soon that city became the 

 chief commercial center of the western hemisphere. Already 

 before the Civil war, the grain traffic of the Mississippi river 

 began to decrease in comparison with that of the Great Lakes. 

 In 1836 the first shipment of grain from Lake Michigan took 

 place, and two years later Chicago made its first consignment. 

 The opening of the eastern route immediately shifted the wheat 

 center westward and gave a great impetus to the development 

 of the north central states. An all-rail route was established 

 between Chicago and the Atlantic ocean in 1852. In 1859 the 

 four leading wheat states were Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and 

 Ohio, and they transported their surplus to the seaboard chiefly 

 by water. When the Civil war closed the Mississippi river, 

 freight rose so high "that it cost more than five times as 

 much to transport a bushel of wheat from Iowa to New York 

 as the farmer received for it." 



Shipments by rail began in 1856. By the seventh decade, the 

 railroads had developed sufficiently to compete with the water 

 route to the Atlantic coast. By the end of this decade the 

 railroads were in the ascendancy in the struggle, having se- 

 cured the bulk of the flour, and about two-thirds of all grains. 

 On an average, however, only about one-third of the wheat has 

 been carried by rail. On account of the favorable location 

 of Chicago, the roads from this city have been most successful 

 in the competition. As early as 1876, 83 per cent of all the 

 grain shipped to the Atlantic seaboard was by rail. Much 

 grain was and is shipped by a part water and part rail route, 

 for the Erie canal has fallen into comparative disuse. A close 

 parallel to this competition is found in the competition between 

 the Canadian railways and the Welland canal. 



The participation of railroads in the eastern grain traffic 

 in the United States and Canada, and also of the Welland canal 

 in Canada, besides extending the grain area and severing it from 

 1 8th U. S. Census, Agriculture, p. xli. 



