106 



<JI)c iTarmer's illontl)li) Visitor. 



came into use : Boston built a line from tliiit city 

 to Albany; vvliicli being open ut all seasons for 

 tiavul and trade, cut New Voik off, and took 

 away tliin business, now vastly • increased in 

 amount and value, and transltjrred a large, per- 

 haps the better part of it to Boston. Boston has 

 expended $30,000,000 on her railroads. New 

 York has awoke at last ; anil, to regain her trade, 

 is constructing railroads along the banks of the 

 Hudson and elsewhere, to counteract Bos(^n. — 

 Now what has been the effect of these measures 

 on the two cities? Boston has grown immense- 

 ly, and is striding like a giatit to the front rank 

 of cities. New York has sunk and been station- 

 ary. We regret that we have not the table of as- 

 sessed values of ihe real estate of Boston, for it 

 woul'd show that her progress has been cotem- 

 poraneous, and as rapid and great as the decline 

 and fall has been marked and great in New York. 



" in 18-24, the year before the Erie Canal was 

 completed, the a.ssessed value of real estate in 

 New York was ®8t!,000,000. In 1830, six years 

 after, it was $125,000,000. The Ohio and Cleve- 

 land Canal was completed in 1831, and the value 

 of real estate in New York rose in nine years to 

 $26t),832,430. or upwards of §141,000,000; being 

 at the rate of fifteen and a half millions of dol- 

 lars a year. But mark now the sequel : ibis on- 

 ward and upward precipitancy of improveenent 

 has been arrested, and New York has declined 

 since 1840, when Boston completed the Western 

 Railroad, connecting her with Albany, and there 

 tapping and drawing off a large portion of the 

 upper New York and Lake trade to herself. The 

 real estate of New York, in 1839, was valued at 

 SaO(i,832,430, ami in 1843 it bad fallen to $229,- 

 929,077, or the enormous amount of $3.5,500,000 

 in three years! being nearly $12,000,000 annual- 

 ly. She has in the last three years recovered 

 .$10,000,000, while Bosloii has grown at more than 

 treble that rate. 



'So much for neglecting the opportunities 

 open to her, and resting on a fancied superiority. 

 Let Charleston beware, or Savannah or Wibuing- 

 ton may be her Boston." 



From the iSewburyport Herald. 



New York. — This city, if it continues lo in- 

 crease its business in time to come as it has for 

 the last twenty years, will ere long become the 

 greatest and wealthiest cily in the world. Its fine 

 harbor, noble river, and the grand canal which 

 opens lo it llie vast regions of the great lakes and 

 the valley of the upper Mississippi, pour into it 

 an amount of business great and increasing, be- 

 yond even the conre|.lion of the most sanguine 

 njinils who have witnessed the unparallelerl 

 growth of this country, and anlici|)ato the day 

 when it will be teeming with a population as 

 dense as that of China. 



Tin' increase in the business of New York, du- 

 ring the last seven or eight months, has received 

 anew impetus from the famine in FiUrope, and 

 she draws to herself tlie produce of many States, 

 uhieli we have been wont lo sniipose would find 

 their best market elsewhere. But Philadelphia, 

 which at one lime was the rival of New York, 

 in connnerce and wealth, has sunk into a mere 

 retail jol)bing store for New York iinporling mer- 

 chants, her l<)reign trade having shrunk into in- 

 signifieanfp, and In-r large fortunes having been 

 <livided and suldivided until ihey have (idlen into 

 IJK! same category, whih^ no new giants ol enter- 

 prise have risen to supply the places of iho mer- 

 cliaiil princes of the last giuieration. Baltimore, 

 loo, has be<'ouie a mere mart, taken possession 

 of by (ierinan .lews, whose Iraffu: is confined to 

 lohai'co, the III eailslull's produced on a limili'd 

 tract of territory, and a West India Irade for the 

 supply of sugar and molasses U> llii: pivwliierrs 

 of the tobacco and hreadslufis which she receiv- 

 es ; while New Orleans, lo which above all, we 

 have looked as the rival ol' New York, seems 

 even now, notwilhslanding the ininiense country 

 nalnrally tributary to her, lo show pretiionilory 

 symptoms of becoming, like I'hilaih'lphiii, a mere 

 salellite to the Norlhern Tyre, wliiidi already 

 stretches out its arms and draws away iniieii 

 wliieh a knowledge of the geography and topo- 

 graphy of the connlry would suppose lo helouir 

 lo ihe crescent city. 



It may be that Ihe pride of this Cinten of Ihe 

 New World will yet liavi.' a fall, but nothing now 

 gives indication of it, Jind tin; advantage vvhtcli 

 New York possesses as a good Norlhern harbor. 



having convenient transportation to the great ag- 

 ricnllnral and manufacturing regions of the inte- 

 rior, will be likely always lo give it the vantage 

 ground. To this. New York owes as much, as to 

 any other advantage of location. It is this which 

 has drawn to her such a great number of foreign 

 capitalists, who would be averse, even if the ad- 

 vantages of location were etjually good, to sit 

 themselves down in a more Southern and less 

 healthful position. 



If New Orleans had the same advantage of cli- 

 mate that New York has, and 4 feet more water 

 on its bar, it would long before this have surpass- 

 ed New York ; or if Philadelphia, even, was with- 

 in reach of the cool sea breeze, it would become 

 a powerful rival to New York. 



Nothing can apparently prevent New York 

 from becoming Ihe greatest cily in the world, so 

 fttr as the magnitude of its traffic is concerned. 

 They who pour their produce into its lap, will 

 of course procure their supplies there, and the 

 packet lines iuid foreign capital which have con- 

 centrated there, have given it even before its ex- 

 porting business became so great, almost an en- 

 tire monopoly of the most valuable branches of 

 the import trade. 



Remarks of the Visitor. 



We extiact the two foregoing articles for the 

 [inrpose of remarking that in the main facts of 

 the singular growth and prosperity both of the 

 cities of New York and Boston both articles are 

 correct: both are partially mistaken by ascribing 

 the great degree of prosperity to a diversion of 

 the trade from one to another city. 



The success of nearly every railroad enterprise 

 commenced in New England has been without 

 parallel of all improvements nttem(ited in the 

 country. It is now beginning to be felt that 

 even the villages and places from which it was 

 snp|)05ed these railroads would take away and 

 remove business are gaining a steady and in some 

 cases a ra)iid increase of business and prosperi- 

 ty, which fact altogether staggers the calculations 

 of those who look only at what already exists as 

 representing what is to come as the results of la- 

 bor and enterprise. 



Wen of our own village, after the hard slriig- 

 gle of more than ten years which brought the 

 railroad from Nashua to ConconI on the even 

 bank of Ihe Merrimack, only thirty-six miles, 

 tliouj;ht the railroad,for the sake of Concord busi- 

 ness, oiijjht never to lake its departure north: it 

 would carry every thing away from us — it would 

 I uin every enterprising man of business. Find- 

 ing it in vain to contest the matter further, and 

 having a sort of inkling that if we stopped the 

 raihoad here, the Cheshire men would carry all 

 the business north and west innl incluiling the 

 Connecjicut river v.illey down round through the 

 southwest corner of the State, our wise cidcnla- 

 tors rather reluctantly assiMiled to grants for a 

 railroad or railroads towarils ihe Connecticut val- 

 ley. 'I'he first road, hurried in part by the com- 

 petition of enterprising men further south, was 

 in the first ye;ir of its commencement exlended 

 <-iyhieeii milivs fiirlher up the river to Franklin: 

 mirmonnliiig all dililc.iiliies, the ears were starleil 

 .Ian. I, 1847, in midwinter, which were lo inako 

 the streets oftJoncord look like Sunday solitude. 

 Absent at that time and through the winter at the 

 South, we WGie anxious to know how the carry- 

 ing by of the many passengers anil thousands of 

 tons of merchandise hail atfecled inir own village. 

 The first man who came along Ihiuugh thought 

 (/'onconl street looked rather soi ry — the next one 

 said there was some slir of men and vehicles in 

 Concord in time of good sleighing, but there was 

 a fiilling off of the crowd. We came home in 

 .Minch, and were astonished to find that nearly 

 every niechaiiii', trader and laverner had done in 

 the past winter iu;arly as good and profitable 



business as he had ever done before ! Since our 

 return the last thing to be complained of has 

 been the carrying away of business from us by 

 the railroad. Even the little extension to Frank- 

 lin has brought us more substantial business than 

 it lias taken away. 



If any thing could affect the busine.13 of a place, 

 we had supposed the railroad from .\lhany to 

 Boston, while Ihe ice closed the Hudson, would 

 diminish the business of the city of New York. 

 It has made a tremendous acquisition lo Boston; 

 but we question much, after all, whether it has 

 injuriously affected the city of New York. That 

 unrivalled city has steadily progressed in wealth 

 and prosperity ever since we have known it ; and 

 never has its increase beep greater than in the 

 late years of the existence of the Massachusetts 

 Western railroad. The ancient part of the city 

 seems to be insufficient in extent for the transac- 

 tion of the business performed in it: the places 

 of residence of the men of business are often two 

 and three miles up the city — many go out of the 

 cily for houses to live in, some to Long island, 

 some lo Staten island, and others to Jersey. Nev- 

 er was the city of New York and its business 

 more prosperous than at this moment. Above 

 ground and under ground are the store-houses 

 and ware-houses extended. The Charleston wri- 

 ter certainly could not have been acquainted with 

 the city of New York as it now is. 



So much in advance of Boston had always been 

 New York, that wo had never supposed lier jeal- 

 ousy would be awakened that Boston would be- 

 come her rival. Like the hull mastiff assailed 

 by the dog of small dimensions, her good nature 

 could hardly be disturbed by any boasting of the 

 Bostonians ; but lately we had perceived the men 

 of Gotham concerned that the railway througli 

 the Berkshire mountains was carrying away 

 oceans of flour and other country merchandise 

 in winter which had before quietly awaited the 

 return of spring for a water communication 

 througli the New York market. None but New 

 England Yankees would ever have thought of 

 such an expedient to turn the course of trade: 

 it was thus turned ; and after all it may be ques- 

 tionable whether the competition in trade brought 

 about by the Western railroad has not been, and 

 will not be to the benefit of New York cily itselt^ 



It does not hi this country of necessity follow 

 that because one city or village has an extraordi- 

 nary and rapid increase and prosperity in busi- 

 ness, that some other ciiy or village must meet 

 with a correspondent depression. New Orleans 

 has grown into a place of greater cxjiorlalion 

 than any other city of the Union: ihe great in- 

 crease of business at that point has been the 

 means of building up New York and other cities 

 of the United States. Philadelphia formerly was 

 probably a greater importing city than New York ; 

 I but her greater distance from the sea has compel- 

 led bet 10 yield lo New York a great portion of 

 that business — Philadelphia too has, more than 

 any other city, lieen the victim of bank revulsions: 

 yet the great wealth of the interior of Penn.sylva- 

 nia, Ihe productions of her agriculture and iron 

 and coal mines, make siifiicient business fiir that 

 city, which probably never did as much at any 

 former time as it is now doing. New sources ot' 

 business lo every part uf the country are contin- 

 ually springing ii[>. 



Much of the jealousy of rival towns towards 

 each oilier has in reality no foundation. Nothim; 

 can he more foolish than Ihe contention which 

 is kept up as between rival roiids taking the same 

 direction. Could it be supposed tlmt the Boston 



