18 BULLETIN 594, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
stantly changing, but their main features are constant; also the 
elaborate rate structure which accounts for many geographic price 
differences. Only a brief statement of a few phases of wheat rates, 
in so far as they relate to the geography of farm prices, is possible here. 
In connection with large areas of equal price in the wheat belt, it 
may be noted that although length of haul is an important element, 
the freight rates are not directly in proportion thereto. The following 
example is pertinent: 
Distance rates between points in Kansas and Oklahoma, Atchison, Topeha & Santa Fe 
Railivay. 
[Rates per bushel of wheat (carload lots) in 1916.] 
10-14 miles $0. 03 
96-100 miles 069 
196-200 miles 093 
Thus 20 times the distance takes only 3 times the 10-mile rate. 
The wheat rate from Chicago is the same to all points in New England; 
the rate to Baltimore applies also to Richmond and Newport News. 
The freight rate from the trans-Mississippi wheat belt to our south- 
eastern States usually is higher than to England. Export wheat 
moves to the seaboard at lower freight rates than does wheat in- 
tended for domestic consumption. 
The natural tendency toward wheat concentration in the great com- 
mercial centers is enhanced by their use as rate-basing points, as well as 
by the reshipping and milling-in-transit rates. Flour usually takes a 
higher rate than wheat, but by the milling-in-transit privilege wheat 
may be stopped at some point en route, milled, and the product 
moved on again at the original rate charged for a through wheat 
shipment 1 to the eventual destination, instead of paying the local 
rate to the milling point and local flour rate to the destination. By 
means of the reshipping rate wheat may be moved into a primary 
market, say Chicago, and shipped on again, taking the through rate 
to the final destination instead of the sum of the local rates. 
All-rail freight rates per bushel of wheat, in 1916 (carload lots). 
From — 
To Buffalo, 
Wheeling, 
Pittsburgh. 
To Baltimore, 
Washington, 
Rochester, 
Newport 
News. 
To New 
York. 
To Boston, 
Portland, 
and New 
England 
points. 
SO. 09 
.06 
$0. 113 
.083 
.10 
.069 
.08 
$0. 131 
.101 
.108 
.078 
.098 
$0,143 
For domestic use. Ai£!^Z~i2~~"i~ 
Chicago.. )£S5?K? srite -:-:-- 
.113 
.108 
[For export {Reshipping rate 
.078 
Toledo or Delaware, Ohio, through local rate .06 
.11 
Thus the local rate applying on wheat originating at or near 
Delaware, Ohio, or Toledo is about the same as the reshipping rate 
from Chicago, which applies to practically all shipments from that 
In some cases railroads apply the through flour rate to such traffic. 
