RURAL MOTOR EXPRESS 



199 



costs, formerly thought of solely in connection with railroads, 

 are now seen to go with the local haul on the country roads (Fig. 

 37). An expert in transportation in the Department of Agriculture 

 published some statistics in 1906, comparing costs of hauling 

 cotton and wheat from farms to shipping point, hauling on the 

 railway, and the ocean haul. The average local haul of cotton 

 farm to shipping point was 11.8 miles, and cost 16 cents per 100 

 pounds for this haul; for wheat the average local haul was 9.4 

 miles, and the cost of this haul was 9 cents per 100 pounds (5.4 

 cents per bushel). The railway charge for hauling to seaboard 

 was 40 cents per 100 pounds of cotton and 20 cents per 100 pounds 



FIG. 37. Transportation by wagon road as seen in Russia. 



of wheat. The ocean carry was, of course, far the cheapest. Thus 

 England took 3,000,000 bushels of wheat in 1905 by sailing vessel 

 from Puget Sound, down the west coast of America and around 

 Cape Horn, a voyage of 15,000 miles. The average charge for car- 

 rying wheat to England for the year, the hauls varying from 3000 

 to 15,000 miles, was 9 cents a bushel, or only one and two-thirds 

 times the cost of hauling nine miles over a country road. 



Rural Motor Express. That country roads are soon to be 

 important factors in transportation is now evidenced by the train 

 of huge motor trucks that carry freight between important urban 

 centers in the eastern part of the United States. The railroad is 

 destined to be used principally for the long haul. Motor vehicles 

 operating over graded and surfaced highways will be the feeders 



