5,58 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



Dec. 



STEa.M TRA-NSPOSTATIOrr. 

 Its Influence on Crops and the Value of Land 

 HANG ES of much importance 

 ' 'r>/^-^ ^^^ taking place in the farm- 

 ing operations of the coun- 

 try. New crops are being intro- 

 duced, better methods of cuhure 

 are bting adopted, agriculfural 

 machinery is being rapidly intro- 

 duced in great variety, and to an 

 almost unlimited extent. Better stock of all 

 kinds is raised ; cheese is made in factories ; 

 milk is condensed, and fruits and vegetables 

 are preserved, on a gigantic scale. 



Among the causes that are working this 

 transformation, steam transportation is, per- 

 haps, the most important. Our country ex- 

 tends 1500 miles from north to south, and 

 nearly 4000 from east to west ; but such are 

 the facilities afforded by steam, that these im- 

 mense distances can be traversed in a few days, 

 and fruits and vegetables can be transported 

 in a fresh condition from one extremity to the 

 other. 



Planting Is commenced in Texas and Flor- 

 ida in February and continued through March 

 and Ap:il. In Maine and New Hampshire it Is 

 commenced In May and continued into June. 

 Early vegetables from Texas and Louisiana 

 can be laid down In the markets of New York 

 and Boston, about the time they are planted 

 in the Immediate vicinity of those cities. Thus 

 the season during which green vegetable food 

 is In use. Is gi-eatly prolonged. This com- 

 merce is to some extent reciprocal. Northern 

 fruits, potatoes and onions are transported in 

 the autumn to the Southern markets. Steam- 

 ers pass from New Orleans to New York In 

 five or six days ; from Savannah and Charles- 

 ton In three or four, and from Chesapeake 

 Bay In twenty-four hours. 



Illinois Is about 400 miles In length from 

 north to south. Chicago is supplied with 

 strawberries and early vegetables from Cen- 

 tralla and the southern section of the State, 

 and twenty days earlier than from the Michigan 

 shore of the Lake. And now, excellent pears 

 and grapes from California are found In good 

 condition in the New York market. 



Thus by means of steam every section of 

 country participates In whatever advantages of 

 climate exist In every other section. The lux- 

 uries of one section are distributed to every 

 other. 



Another, and a very important effect of 

 steam transportation is that It equalizes the 

 value of land. Land for agricultural pur- 

 poses depends for Its value upon Its market 

 facilities. Now lands one or two hundred 

 miles from the city market are worth as much 

 per acre, as those situated fifteen or twenty 

 miles distant. As you get beyond the limit to 

 which manures from the city stables c n be 

 profitably hauled, farming lands assume a 

 nearly uniform value. Improved lands in 

 Ohio, Illinois and Michigan are worth as much 

 as In the Interior of Massachusetts and Con- 

 necticut. Lands within ten miles of the mar- 

 ket to which manures can be teamed from the 

 city, by which double crops can be grown, and 

 from which fresh vegetables and fruits can be 

 daily carried to the market, will always be 

 worth more than lands at a greater distance. 



But most kinds of produce, including small 

 fruits and wild berries, milk, poultry and eggs, 

 are daily transported from one to three hun- 

 dred miles. Green peas, early potatoes and 

 sweet corn are transported by rail two and 

 three hundred miles, and much further by 

 boat. The effect of this is to raise the value 

 of lands In the Interior much more rapidly 

 than In the vicinity of the market. And even 

 if the crops of the Interior were confined to 

 grain, pork, beef and butter, the greater fa- 

 cilities for marketing these staples would In- 

 crease the value of the land on which they 

 were produced. 



A few years since, the expense of teaming 

 a hundred bushels of corn in Illinois to the 

 nearest shipping town absorbed the whole 

 amount of the sale. A railroad station in the 

 vicinity of a farm quadrupled the vAue of the 

 crops, and of course the value of the lands. 



Steam transportation Is causing manufacto- 

 ries to spring up all over the country. These 

 create local markets for all kinds of produce, 

 and of course Increase the value of land. At 

 these local markets, the limited demand not 

 calling out so large a supply, the price is often 

 as high or even higher than in the greater city 

 markets. The whole tendency, then, of steam 

 transportation is not only to enlarge the field 

 from which supplies are drawn, but to equal- 

 ize the value of every part of the field reached 

 by it. 



Another effect of steam transportation Is 

 that it enables the farmer in the interior to 



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