198 THE BOOK OF WHEAT 



wheat sent from the Red river valley to Duluth was 30 cents 

 per bushel. A general reduction in railroad, river and ocean 

 freight rates is the condition which, more than anything else, 

 has made possible the shipping, and consequently the growing, 

 of immense quantities of wheat. This was the major factor 

 involved in opening a market for the wheat grower, not only 

 in the great centers of consumption in our own country, but 

 in those of the world. Estimates at the close of the nineteenth 

 century still placed the cost of carrying wheat from the north- 

 west to the Atlantic seaboard as one-half as great as the origi- 

 nal cost of production. By 1897, the cost of concentrating the 

 wheat surplus at Chicago was reduced to one-fourth or one- 

 third of the cost in 1880. In 1884 the cost of getting wheat 

 from the farm to the consumer was 22 per cent of its Chicago 

 value. This had fallen to 6 per cent in 1897. The Chicago 

 price of wheat was practically the same at both dates. 



From 1867 to the end of the century, the freight rate per 

 bushel of wheat from Chicago to New York by rail decreased 

 from 33 l /2 cents to 12 cents. As we have seen, however, the 

 competition between these two points was the most severe pos- 

 sible, and it must not be assumed that freight, rates in general 

 decreased to this extent. The rate per bushel for shipping 

 wheat from Chicago to New York by lake and canal route was 

 8.8 cents in 1871, and 4.8 cents in 1905; by lake and rail it was 

 12.1 cents in J.875 and 6.4 in 1905; and by an all-rail route it 

 was 20.9 cents in 1875 and 9.9 cents in 1905. From Chicago to 

 New York, the rate by lake and rail route fell from 19.2 cents 

 in 1870 to 5.6 cents in 1902. At the close of the century the 

 average rate between these two points was less than one cent 

 greater by rail and lake than by lake and canal, and railroad 

 rates had reached the lowest notch, for the roads preferred to 

 lose the grain trade rather than to reduce rates further. 



In 1880 railroads carrying wheat to Chicago charged from 

 1.08 to 1.75 cents per ton per mile. In 1897 the rates were 

 0.78 of a cent to 1 cent, a reduction of from 0.25 to 0.74 of a 

 cent per ton per mile in 17 years. This reduction was less 

 than that made by the cotton and coal roads during the same 

 period of time. 1 The average rate on all freight per ton per 

 mile was about the same in 1890 as was that on wheat in 1897. 

 1 Industrial Commission, 6:59-60. 



