330 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



by wagon (at twenty cents per ton per mile) would cost 

 only one-nineteenth of its value. Carriage a like dis- 

 tance would cost about half the value of wheat, and 

 more than the whole value of potatoes or hay. At 

 three cents per ton per mile, by railroad, the entire 

 value of potatoes (at fifty-four cents) would pay for 

 transportation 600 miles; of hay (at twenty-two dol- 

 lars a ton), 733 miles; of wheat ($1.24 a bushel), 1377 

 miles; of tobacco (eight cents), 5533 miles; of sugar 

 (ten cents), 6666 miles; and of cotton (nineteen cents), 

 12,666 miles. Even in the palmy days of Southern 

 agriculture, the building of railroads was regarded with 

 comparative indifference by the people of that section ; 

 and, for the same reason, the contest between the farm 

 and the rail is mainly confined to the Northwest. 



" Unable to raise Southern crops, the farmers of the 

 Northwest must raise products peculiarly affected in 

 value by the cost of transportation, or relapse into a 

 patriarchal form of industry, and derive their only 

 profit from flocks and herds. The value of animals for 

 food is limited by the demand for consumption. All 

 the animal food required by States which do not pro- 

 duce enough for their own use in value about forty 

 millions, or one-tenth of the entire consumption could 

 be supplied hy a single State. Texas now has one- 

 seventh of all the neat cattle in the country, and the 

 difference in cost of transportation from Texas and 

 from Northwestern States is more than compensated by 

 the difference in the cost of land. No large increase 

 in the production of animals at the Northwest could be 

 profitable, unless the people of this country should con- 

 tinue to eat very much more animal food. Wool bears 

 transportation a long distance, but, again, the demand 



