AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ship, any cargo coming to New Orleans, 

 finds a public dock and a low, fixed 

 charge awaiting it. But this is not all. 

 On the public dock at every point is 

 the track of the public belt railroad, on 

 which operate cars- and engines owned 

 by the public, and for a uniform charge 

 of $2 a car freight from the shipside 

 is delivered on any railroad or to any 

 factory which has a sidetrack in New 

 Orleans, and for the same rate these 

 cars are transferred from the factory to 

 the waterside. On incoming freight this 

 charge is absorbed by the railroads, and 

 also on freight shipped directly from 

 New Orleans, but whereas ten years ago 

 the New Orleans shipper paid a car 

 rental as high as $15 a car to get this 

 service done by the railway, and was 

 forced to go to the ship himself for his 

 bill of lading, to-day he delivers his 

 freight to the belt-line and collects from 

 it a bill of lading to any port in the 

 world. 



This is not the end of the New Or- 

 leans investment. Its belt-line is profit- 

 able, its docks are profitable, the city is 

 making money, and its trade is grow- 

 ing ; but the city will go ahead further, 

 extending its wharves, and it Avill not 

 be long before the necessities and the 

 example of other cities will induce New 

 Orleans to erect the terminal machinery 

 that will make its outfit complete. 



The other example which I shall cite 

 is that of the city of Montgomery, Ala., 

 on the Alabama River, connected with 

 Mobile by a channel which might easily 

 be deepened to nine feet and main- 

 tained at that depth throughout the 

 year, but which now falls to three feet 

 in the summer time. Even at three 

 feet, Mobile and Montgomery should be 

 connected by a regular service, and 

 there has, in fact, been a packet-boat 

 service connecting the cities, but Mont- 

 gomery is situated on a high bank 

 eighty or ninety feet, if my memory 

 serves me above the river', and the 

 situation is complicated by the fact that 

 the river rises fifty or sixty feet in flood 

 time. Ever since the first steamboat 

 vhistle frightened the cotton-pickers in 

 "f the Alabama, steamboats 

 and park i have dumped their 



freight on a little patch of mud and 



sand at the foot of the bank, and by 

 a tortuous and deep-rutted road the 

 merchants of Montgomery have dragged 

 their freight up this hill and through the 

 streets of the town. Irregular service, 

 high insurance, and, above all, this 

 charge, which was not less than $2 a 

 ton for local delivery, have militated 

 against the use of the river to Mont- 

 gomery, have made it an inland city 

 with rates not to be compared witl'i 

 those at Mobile. 



I am furnished with certain statistics 

 of this port which will interest you by 

 Mr. H. S. Kealhofer, the secretary of 

 the Montgomery Chamber of Com- 

 merce, than whom no man has worked 

 harder or more directly to the point for 

 the reduction of freight rates and the 

 establishment of Montgomery as a 

 water-differential point. 



Remember that Montgomery is away 

 up in the middle of Alabama, on a di- 

 rect route from Vicksburg on the Mis- 

 sissippi, and from Memphis, also on the 

 Mississippi, on the Alabama River, and 

 theoretically open to the sea. Mobile 

 is 180 miles farther from St. Louis, 

 and to be reached from that city by 

 water its freight would go on a the- 

 oretical steamboat, which does not ex- 

 ist, from St. Louis to New Orleans, 

 and on a theoretical coast steamboat line, 

 which does not exist, from New Or- 

 leans to Mobile. Mobile is, therefore, 

 on the same sort of a theoretical water 

 channel that Montgomery is, except that 

 it has terminal facilities and deeper 

 water. 



The rate on flour from St. Louis to 

 Mobile is 36 cents a barrel, and until re- 

 cently the rate to Montgomery was 58 

 cents a barrel. This is a situation verv 

 like the Spokane case, for the flour 

 could be shipped from St. Louis to 

 Mobile and back to Montgomery for 

 the same rate that it could be sent di- 

 rect. Montgomery, therefore, which 

 used 225,000 barrels of flour a year, 

 was paying practically $50,000 more 

 than Mobile paid for freight on the 

 same quantity of flour. Packing-house 

 products, of which the citv used 10.000 

 tons a year, came from St. Louis on a 

 42-cent rate, against 33 cents to Mo- 

 bile. The 3,000 car'oads of grain prod- 



