80 



GENESEE FARMER. 



April. 



Canal Tolls on the Products of New York 

 Agriculture. 



We were slightly in error when we said in 

 our March number, that the Canal Board had re- 

 duced the tolls on corn to 2 mills per 1000 lbs. 

 per mile. The toll is to be 3 mills instead of 2. 

 As the farmers have a deep interest in this ques- 

 tion of high, low, and discriminating tolls, we 

 desire to call their attention to a few facts, which 

 tiie political and other journals have somehov*' 

 overlooked. 



The man that raises and fattens 10,000 lbs. of 

 cattle, sheep, or swine, in Western New York, 

 and wishes to send them alive to tide water, for 

 a market, in a canal boat, (which, with reasona- 

 ble tolls, would be the cheapest and bes.t way to 

 reach the city of Ne\y York,) must pay into the 

 treasury of the State just eight times as much 

 money for the use of the canal, as is exacted of a 

 Wisconsin merchant that sends the same weight 

 of lead an equal distance tlirough the same State 

 improvement. This enormous — this most unjust 

 discrimination against the stock growers of West- 

 ern New York, particularly those of Chautauque, 

 Cattaraugus, Wyoming, and Allegany counties, 

 operates to prevent the use of the canal for the 

 purpose named ; while the Canal Board place it 

 at the service of those engaged in transporting 

 lead from Wisconsin and Illinois, coal from Ohio 

 and Pennsylvania, tobacco and hemp from Ken- 

 tucky, and cotton from Tennessee. We do not 

 complain that the tolls are so reduced as to invite 

 the transit-of the articles named through the ca- 

 nal. But we do contend that, while the Canal 

 Board is so liberal to the inhabitants of the West 

 and South, it has no moral right to impose on 

 our own citizens i^rohihitorij tolls, on all fat-cat- 

 tle, hogs, and sheep ; on oats, hay, hemlock lum- 

 ber, and many other articles too numerous to 

 mention. The toll on potatoes is twice as high 

 per 1000 lbs. as on lead. On a ton of pressed 

 hay, the Canal Board exacts four times as much 

 money as it does on a ton of lead. On a ton of 

 oats the toll is four times as heavy as it is on a 

 ton of hemp, or tobacco. On pine lumber the 

 toll is 80 per cent, higher than it is on mineral 

 coal, and 240 per cent, higher than on lead. — 

 Erie county could easily send va.st quantities of 

 hemlock lumber to tide -water, if its»inhabitants 

 were permitted to use the Erie Canal on equal 

 terms, pound for pound, with those that boat lead 

 through it. But, some how a farmer's dollar 

 will only go one-fourth as for in paying toll on a 

 ton of oats, as the manufacturer's dollar in pay- 

 ing toll on a ton of hemp ; or the merchant's in 

 paying toll on a like amount of that prime arti- 

 cle of human food — tobacco ! 



If the State now realized any considerable rev- 

 enue from high tolls on pressed hay, oats, fat 

 cattle, &c., the loss of toll might be urged as a 

 reason why no farther reduction should be made. 

 But as the rate is strictly prohibitory, and pre- 



vents the receipt of any revenue worth naming, 

 there ca.n be no loss from a reduction, no matter 

 hov/ much. It is not the fear of loss in tolls that 

 keeps them up. 



We urge this matter the more at this time, be- 

 cause fresh meats packed in ice will soon be 

 shipped from New York and Boston direct to 

 England, and be admitted duty free. Our par- 

 tially exhausted wheat fields greatly need the 

 renovating aid of more stock and manure. In- 

 dependently of this, however, we are free to state 

 our firm opi)osition to a policy that depopulates 

 Western New York, by saying to its industrious 

 young men, " go west and dig lead out of the 

 earth, and not stay in New York and dig oats 

 from her soil ; and as a bounty to induce you to 

 emigrate, twelve and a ha"lf cents shall go asfar 

 in paying toll on the Erie canal on a ton of Wis- 

 consin lead, as a dollar will go to pay toll on a 

 ton of New York oats." This policy must be 

 abandoned. How much more are 100 lbs. of 

 oats worth at tide water, than 100 lbs. of lead, 

 that the toll should be eight times higher on the 

 former than on the latter "? 



The commercial men engaged in the coal, 

 lead, salt, cotton, hemp, and tobacco trade, look 

 well after their interests ; but who looks after the 

 interests of the .50,000 farmers in Western New 

 York, when the Canal Board is in session? — 

 AVhich, among all the political papers, keeps a 

 watchful eye over everything that is likely to af- 

 fect injuriously the farmer's great, and useful 

 calling? If no one does this, then is it not 

 highly important to the numerous tillers of the 

 eartli that, they sustain a Journal wholly devoted 

 to their prosperity, above the reach of party pol- 

 itics, and yet so cheap that its light, and truth 

 may visit every log house in the land ? How 

 are we to have an enlightened public opinion, to 

 control all State officers, and legislation ? Or 

 should the agricultural public have no ojyinion in 

 regard to the rate of tolls imposed on the weighty, 

 and cheap articles, which this same hard work- 

 ing Public desires to send to a distant market ? 



If our present readers could be persuaded to 

 lend us their assistance, so far as to place the 

 Farmer in the hands of one-third of the heads of 

 flimilies engaged in agricultural pursuits, in this 

 State, west of Syracuse, Public Opinion would 

 soon so modify the canal tolls as, practically, to 

 place the soil of Western New York 100 miles 

 nearer than it now is, to tide water. Instead of 

 losing our industrious young men, and dinu'nish- 

 ing our rural population, we should then double 

 our present numbers, and the substantial value 

 of our farms. Be that as it may, it is our duty 

 to press upon the attention of our readers this 

 point : that it is alike impolitic and unjust to 

 compel the people of W^estern New York to 

 emigrate to Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, or Illi- 

 nois, after they have paid for the old Erie canal, 

 before the Canal Board will permit them to use 



