MARKETS AND MARKETING 249 



operate with each other in facilitating transportation. 



New York State has SoSO miles of steam railroad 

 and about 5000 miles of electric railroad, a large part 

 of which, of course, is in cities. The proportion of 

 this latter that may be assigned to rural districts 

 may be placed roughly at one-fiftli or 1000 miles. 

 Assuming that 550 miles of the steam road is in cit- 

 ies, the net mileage of railroads in the country dis- 

 tricts of the State is 8000 or about one for eacli five 

 square miles of area or one mile for each 1000 acres 

 of specified crops. 



Unfortunately, this mileage is not uniformly dis- 

 tributed and in several places there are double and 

 triple lines approximately parallel and near each 

 otlier, which correspondingly reduces the railway 

 service to other communities. The greatest thor- 

 oughfare of rail traffic in the country is the course up 

 the Hudson Valley and west through the Mohawk 

 Valley, over the Ontario plain to Buffalo and thence 

 to Cleveland and the west. Another important line 

 of travel lies across the southern part of the State 

 leading up from New York througli the Delaware 

 and Susquehanna Eiver valleys and thence up the 

 Chemung Valley and over the divide into the 

 Allegheny Valley on a course to the Middle 

 West. 



The hilly topography, together with the peculiar 

 deep through-valleys that have been developed in all 

 the more elevated parts of the State, have been re- 

 sponsible for this concentration of the main lines of 

 transportation in the valleys. The cross valleys that 



