THE BURDEN OF TRANSPORTATION 73 



main shipping points were out of all propor- 

 tion to the value of the animal. Feeding stock 

 from the ranges of New Mexico and Texas which 

 are ordinarily shipped to Kansas to be finished 

 on grass could not be moved since the large 

 investments necessary to pay the high freights 

 were held up by a shortage of funds in the 

 banks. Loans for cattle feeding were almost 

 impossible to secure. The price of the hay 

 to be fed to much of this stock was likewise 

 affected. Good alfalfa hay worth $6 to $8 a 

 ton in Colorado cost $15 to $18 per ton to ship 

 to Illinois, making the hay cost out of all pro- 

 portion for its value for feeding purposes. The 

 result was we were left with live stock without 

 feed in one part of the country and feed pro- 

 ducers found themselves without animals to con- 

 sume the feed in other parts of the country 

 with a barrier of high freight rates between 

 them. 



These rates affected the manufacturing in- 

 dustry by increasing the basic costs of raw 

 material to a point where the industries in many 

 instances chose to curtail production rather than 

 pay the increased cost which they knew would 

 drive the total cost of their product so high 

 as to make it difficult to sell to the ultimate 



