TRANSPORTING FLOUR. PRICES. 155 



his eastern competitor as would be his rivalry in grain. Another element to be 

 brought into the calculation, as illustrated bj' Mr. Minor, is the greater amount 

 of labor dejnanded ibr tillage crops, and labor is the great desideratum now in 

 the parts of Virginia which have been drained of it to supply Alabama and other 

 Southern States. The dearness of labor in this country is, in fact, enough to pre- 

 vent us I'rom supplying any English demand for wheat, unless under extraordi- 

 nary circumstances of a general scarcity on the Continent. Europe — where field- 

 labor is about twelve cents a day — is the true wheat region of the world. Take 

 the extent of that Continent, as estimated by McCulloch, at 3,650,000 square 

 miles ; and four-sevenths of this, or 2.000,000 square miles, (about the entire 

 area of the United States, exclusive of Texas and Oregon,) is adapted to wheat. 



The better to judge of the accuracy of Mr. Minor's estimate as to the average 

 price there given, as well as for other and general calculations and reference, it 

 may be well to put down here the averages for a series of years at different mills 

 and markets in this country. At Brandywine mills, Delaware, the average of 

 the prices paid from 1815 to 1841, both inclusive, was $1 34|. In the INew- 

 York market, the average price for ten years, from 1836 to 1845, both inclusive, 

 was $1 25. At Baltimore the average price for thirteen years prior to 1845, was 

 $1 24. At Philadelphia from 1815 to 1841 — a period of twenty-seven years — the 

 annual average was $6 71 per barrel for flour. 



The flour of the Valley of Virginia, when transported on the Macadamized 

 road to Winchester in wagons, costs for transportation about one cent per mile, 

 or fifty cents from Newmarket, 48 miles. It is usually taken as a business in 

 wagons drawn by six heavy horses, 40 barrels being the usual load : but teams 

 have been often known to take 10,000 weight. The usual travel is eighteen 

 miles a day. 'J'he cost of transportation from Cumberland to Baltimore, 178 miles 

 by railroad, is the same as 48 miles from Newmarket to Winchester, and the 

 freight on flour from Chicago to New-York, 1450 miles, is but $1 37 a barrel — or 

 34 cents a bushel. 



From Detroit 31 17^ or 28 cents per bushel 



From Buffalo I'Ts or 23 



Such is the difference between horse-power, even on the best Macadamized 

 roads, and more artificial conveyances and water transportation. 



Let not the Virginia farmer — on exhausted land and far from market and the 

 facilities of river navigation — be deluded by the hope of extraordinary prices, such 

 as we have had, under an extraordinary combination of circumstances. We have 

 seen tJiat Mr. Minor's estimate is the only safe one. The official average iir 

 Great Britain, for seven years ending 1844, per imperial bushel of 60 pounds, 

 was only $1 68. The average at our Atlantic ports has been $1 25. It is known 

 that ordinarily the price of freight, and all charges from New-York to Liverpool, 

 is at least 33 cents ; lately it has been 50 cents, but putting it at 33 makes the 

 price of American wheal in Liverpool $158, leaving to the shipper only 10 cents 

 for his trouble and risk, supposing the Corn-Laws never to be renewed. They 

 only, then, it is clear, can safely go on making and depending upon wheat and 

 corn, who have the resolution and perseverance to follow out the system indicated 

 so clearly by the author of this Address. 



In opposition and contrast with the general management here spoken of, I am 

 glad to record a remarkable evidence of a difl'erent spirit existing in South Caroli- 

 na, as evinced by the example of the gentleman Avhom I persuaded to give me 

 the following written transcript of what I had previously learned from him in 

 conversation at the White Sulphur Springs, where may be met every year a 

 number of southern planters eminently distinguished for their intelligence and 

 their affability when you meet them abroad, as I know them to be for their hospi- 

 tality, industry and humanity at home. Would that certain farmers of whom 

 I have heard, not many miles from the shores of the Rappahannock opposite Port 

 Ptoyal — farmers who have inexhaustible and as yet unbroken beds of marl on 

 their farms— could see in this paper the proof of the spirit of improvement roused 

 by the explorations of Mr. Ruffin in Carolina. Are not such listless farmers in 

 Caroline afraid of being haunted by the spirit of Arator, indighant at their neglect 

 of his admonitions ? 



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