568 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



rule of freight traffic applies even to the cost incurred by farmers in 

 hauling their products from farms to shipping points. It is estimated 

 that it costs an average of 16 cents per 100 pounds to haul cotton from 

 farms to shipping points, while the cost for wheat is 9 cents. The 

 average distance of cotton farms from local shipping points is 1 1.8 

 miles, the average weight of a wagonload of cotton is 1,702 pounds, 

 and the average cost of hauling the load $2.76; the corresponding 

 averages for wheat are 9.4 miles, 3,323 pounds, and $2.86. It is 

 plain that cotton may be profitably hauled for greater distances and 

 in smaller loads than wheat, since the value of an average load of the 

 cotton picked in 1905 was more than $170, while a load of wheat was 

 worth about $40. 



The average railway freight rate for cotton from local shipping 

 points to seaports is estimated at 40 cents per 100 pounds, while the 

 corresponding rate for wheat is about 20 cents. This difference in 

 railway charges between these two commodities illustrates the tend- 

 ency of value to influence transportation costs, and also shows one 

 of the several phases of the principle of railway-rate making which is 

 often described as "charging what the traffic will bear." On the 

 ocean, also, freight charges for cotton are higher than those for wheat. 

 The rates quoted for regular lines of steamers for carrying cotton from 

 Galveston, New Orleans, and New York to Liverpool averaged during 

 the year ending June 30, 1906, about 32 cents per 100 pounds, while 

 the corresponding rate for wheat was only one-fourth that sum, or 

 8 cents per 100 pounds. A cargo of cotton shipped from Galveston 

 to Liverpool frequently contains as much as 5,500,000 pounds, and 

 the value in 1905-6 of such a cargo at Galveston was not far from 

 $600,000, while the same quantity of wheat would have been worth 

 from $70,000 to $90,000. 



Cotton. The cost of hauling cotton from farms in the South 

 Atlantic States was found to be 13 cents per 100 pounds, while the 

 average for all the cotton regions west of Georgia and the Alleghany 

 Mountains was 17 cents. The difference in cost between the two 

 regions was due chiefly to the difference in the average distances from 

 farms to shipping points, the distance for the South Atlantic States 

 being 9.6 miles, and for the South Central States 12.7 miles. 



Taking into account the relative quantity of cotton produced in 

 the region affected by each rate, the average charge to Galveston from 

 local stations in Texas, Indian Territory, and Oklahoma during 1905 

 was 54 cents per 100 pounds. The mean rate to New Orleans from 



