GRAIN TRADE ROUTES IN UNITED STATES. 503 

sippi and its tributaries; wheat, flour, and maize being col- 
lected at Cincinnati and St. Louis, and shipped down to New 
Orleans. As late as 1840 more barrels of flour arrived at New 
Orleans than at Buffalo, but the immense impetus given to 
the development of the north central States ly, ethers Ee 
Canal, which was opened in 1825, soon deprived the Missis- 
sippi route of its pre-eminence; in addition to which there 
were many drawbacks to the southern route, due to chmate, 
dithculties of navigation, and want of facilities at the Gult 
ports. Asa result of these drawbacks and of the develop- 
ment of the Erie Canal, the fourth and fifth decades witnessed 
a diversion of the grain traffic from the southern to the 
eastern route. he receipts of grain and flour at such cities 
onthe Mississippi River system as Cincinnati, St. Louis, and 
New Orleans did not decrease, but they did not increase to a 
degree at all comparable with the increase of receipts and 
shipments at Lake cities. 
The development of the eastern route was continuous and 
rapid. During the years immediately following 1823 a very 
large increase took piace inthe population bordering on Lake 
Erie and Lake Michigan. The first shipment of grain from 
Lake Michigan tock place in 1836 from the port of Grand 
Haven, and in 1838 a consignment of 39 bags of wheat was 
made from Chicago. By 1841 grain began to be shipped 
from Milwaukee, and the completion of the Illinois and 
Michigan Canal and of the Galena and Chicago Union Rail- 
road to Fox. River opened up the northern part of Illinois to 
the grain trade. 
The immediate effect of the opening up of the eastern route 
was the rapid extension of the grain area and the shifting of 
its centre of production towards the West. In 1840 the total 
production of cereals in the United States had amounted to 
616,000,000 bushels; by 1850 it had reached 867,000,000, and 
during the decade ending 1860 it had reached a total of 
I,239,000,000 bushels. The production of wheat alone in- 
creased from 100,485,944 bushels, or 4°33 bushels per head, 
in 1850 to 173,104,924 bushels, or 5°50 per capita, in 1860. 
The increase in the production of wheat had not been uniform, 
however, the production having increased to a far greater 
extent in the west than in the east. 
