HIS LIFE AND WORK 



way north from the wheat-fields of western 

 Canada to the unknown water of Hudson Bay, 

 whence the wheat will be carried by boat to 

 London and Liverpool. 



To-day it is not the long haul of wheat, .but 

 the short haul, that is more expensive. It is 

 cheaper to carry wheat from one country to 

 another than from the barn to the nearest town. 

 The average distance that an American farmer 

 has to haul his grain is nine and a half miles, 

 and the average cost of haulage is nine cents per 

 hundred pounds. Thus it has actually become 

 true that to carry wheat ten miles by wagon 

 costs more than 2,300 miles by steamship. 

 Such is the tense efficiency of our wheat-carrier 

 system that a bushel of grain can now be picked 

 up in Missouri and sent to the cotton-spinners 

 of England for a dime. 



Associated with this transportation problem 

 was the matter of storage. There was no sort 

 of a building known to man, fifty years ago, in 

 which a million bushels of wheat might be con- 

 veniently kept. An entirely new kind of build- 

 ing had to be invented. All the wheat barns 



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