GEOGRAPHICAL PHASES OF FARM PRICES: CORN. 25 
Thus forty times the distance takes less than four times the ten-mile 
rate. The through rates from a point in the corn belt apply to all 
New England destinations ; the rate to Baltimore applies equally to 
Eichmond and Newport News. 
Moreover, the sum of a series of local rates covering a given route 
is usually higher than the through rate over the same route. Also, 
export grain usually moves to the seaboard at lower rates than does 
grain for domestic use. A higher rate applies to grain products 
than to grain. Lower rates usually prevail at points possessing 
water transportation, which serves as a potential if not an actual 
competitive factor. 
The influence of markets upon farm prices, as well as the tendency 
to concentrate the commercial corn in the large commercial centers, 
is affected by freight rates. 
By means of the milling-in-transit rate, corn may be stopped 
en route, milled, cleaned, or dried, and the product moved on again 
at the original rate charged for a through corn shipment, instead of 
taking the local rate to the milling point and the higher rate for 
grain products to eventual destination. On some lines the rate for 
grain products is applied to such traffic. 
It may be noted that the tendency to manufacture cereal products 
near sources of supply and lessen transportation costs is somewhat 
offset by this higher rate for grain products as well as by reshipping 
and milling-in-transit rates. 
Rates on corn from the North Central States to the Southeast are 
considerably higher than to New England or eastern points; before 
the war they were higher even than transportation costs from points 
in the corn belt to British markets. This fact is suggestive when 
considered in connection with the higher prices paid to corn growers 
in the Southeast, where production is less than consumption. 
The difference in freight rates between carload and less-than- 
carload lots represents still another factor in the price zones, affect- 
ing especially sections in which corn traffic is small. In the territory 
east of the Mississippi and south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers 
the same rate applies to carload and less-than-carload lots of corn. 
COSTS OF PRODUCTION AND FARM PRICES, GEOGRAPHIC 
DIFFERENCES. 
An analysis of the practical bearing of varying price levels on 
local types of agriculture is incomplete without consideration of cost 
to production. Two elements are involved here : ( 1 ) The cost of pro- 
ducing crops upon an acreage basis, and (2) the number of bushels 
produced to the acre. 
55985°— 18— Bull. 696- 4 
