INTRODUCTION. 



cli 



Value of imports of agricultural produce info the United States from Canada^ and into Canada from the United States. 



Years. 



Vftlui&amp;lt; of imports into United 

 StatcH from Canada. 



Valuo of irnportu into Canada 

 from the United States. 



Value of imports into United 

 Status from Canada. 



Value; of import- into Canada 

 from thu UnitL-d States. 



1856 $11,864,830 



1857 7,100,413 



1858 5,740,305 



1859 6,278,351 



1860 10,013,799 



1861.. 9,580,165 



3, 809, 112 

 5,272,151 

 3,385,517 



4, 671, 882 

 4,603, 114 



5, 172, 588 



1850 $2,706,362 $427,084 



1851 1,937,283 676,327 



1852 3, 277, 929 473, 137 



1853 4,949,576 668,113 



1854 5,295,667 1,500,521 



1855 11,801,435 4,972,475 



According to the above table it is evident that, however much the people of the United States may 

 have been benefited by the operations of the reciprocity treaty, it has been more advantageous to the 

 Canadian than to the American agriculturist. 



THE GRAIN TUAUE OF THE MISSISSIPPI R1VEH. 



The grain trade of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers has, for upwards of a rpaarter of a century, 

 occupied an important place in the commercial history of the United States. In the early part of the 

 present century, before the era of canals and railroads, the tide of emigration forced itself into the 

 valleys of those rivers and laid the foundations of what soon became large and flourishing settlements. 

 Before Chicago, Milwaukie, and Toledo had existence, other than as small trading posts, Cincinnati, on 

 the Ohio, and St. Louis, on the Mississippi river, were comparatively large towns, with a trade and com 

 merce which attracted capital from all parts of the world. The Mississippi river was the natural outlet 

 for this trade to the ocean, and New Orleans became at an early day the only exporting point for the 

 grain products of the west. 



The valley of the Ohio river, embracing the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, was settled 

 first, and the grain trade of that river proper is therefore the oldest. But the fertile lands of the river 

 tier of counties in Illinois and Missouri soon attracted the attention of agriculturists, and the grain trade 

 of the Mississippi river proper followed; and. as we have shown in a previous chapter, before steamboat 

 navigation had made much progress, the grain was shipped chiefly in rude barges and carefully floated 

 down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where it found a market, and was shipped to foreign ports. 

 And even, at no distant date, nil the western grain and flour which found a market in New York or 

 New England was shipped to New Orleans in steamboats, and thence around the Atlantic coast in 

 ocean ships. 



The following is an exhibit of receipts of grain and flour at Cincinnati during the past eighteen years: 



TABLE L. 



Receipts of flour and grain at Cincinnati for cigJitccn years. 

 (Compiled from statistics of Cincinnati Cbambcr of Commerce.) 



