I was induced to visit this not very flourishing town by a desire to see the rolling prairie of Illinois, and to learn by eyesight something of the crops of corn or Indian maize which are produced upon the land. Had that gentleman told me that we knew nothing of producing corn in England, he would have been nearer the mark; for of corn, in the profusion in which it is grown here, we do not know much. Better land than the prairies of Illinois for cereal crops the world's surface probably cannot show. And here there has been no necessity for the long previous labor of banishing the forest.
Enormous prairies stretch across the State, into which the plow can be put at once. The earth is rich with the vegetation of thousands of years, and the farmer's return is given to him without delay.
The land bursts with its own produce, and the plenty is such that it creates wasteful carelessness in the gathering of the crop. It is not worth a man's while to handle less than large quantities.
Up in Minnesota I had been grieved by the loose manner in which wheat was treated. I have seen bags of it upset and left upon the ground. The labor of collecting it was more than it was worth.
There wheat is the chief crop, and as the lands become cleared and cultivation spreads itself, the amount coming down the Mississippi will be increased almost to infinity. The price of wheat in Europe will soon depend, not upon the value of the wheat in the country which grows it, but on the power and cheapness of the modes which may exist for transporting it. I have not been able to obtain the exact prices with reference to the carriage of wheat from St. Paul (the capital of Minnesota) to Liverpool, but I have done so as regards Indian-corn from the State of Illinois. The following statement will show what proportion the value of the article at the place of its growth bears to the cost of the carriage; and it shows also how enormous an effect on the price of corn in England would follow any serious decrease in the cost of carriage:--A bushel of Indian-corn at Bloomington, in Illinois, cost, in October, 1861 10 cents.
Freight to Chicago 10 "Storage 2 "Freight from Chicago to Buffalo 22 "Elevating, and canal freight to New York19 "Transfer in New York and insurance 3 "Ocean freight 23 "---------
Cost of a bushel of Indian-corn at Liverpool89 cents.
Thus corn which in Liverpool costs 3s. l0d. has been sold by the farmer who produced it for 5d.! It is probable that no great reduction can be expected in the cost of ocean transit; but it will be seen by the above figures that out of the Liverpool price of 3s.
l0d., or 89 cents, considerably more than half is paid for carriage across the United States. All or nearly all this transit is by water; and there can, I think, be no doubt but that a few years will see it reduced by fifty per cent. In October last the Mississippi was closed, the railways had not rolling stock sufficient for their work, the crops of the two last years had been excessive, and there existed the necessity of sending out the corn before the internal navigation had been closed by frost. The parties who had the transit in their hands put their heads together, and were able to demand any prices that they pleased. It will be seen that the cost of carrying a bushel of corn from Chicago to Buffalo, by the lakes, was within one cent of the cost of bringing it from New York to Liverpool. These temporary causes for high prices of transit will cease; a more perfect system of competition between the railways and the water transit will be organized; and the result must necessarily be both an increase of price to the producer and a decrease of price to the consumer. It certainly seems that the produce of cereal crops in the valleys of the Mississippi and its tributaries increases at a faster rate than population increases. Wheat and corn are sown by the thousand acres in a piece. I heard of one farmer who had 10,000 acres of corn. Thirty years ago grain and flour were sent Westward out of the State of New York to supply the wants of those who had immigrated into the prairies; and now we find that it will be the destiny of those prairies to feed the universe. Chicago is the main point of exportation Northwestward from Illinois, and at the present time sends out from its granaries more cereal produce than any other town in the world. The bulk of this passes, in the shape of grain or flour, from Chicago to Buffalo, which latter place is, as it were, a gateway leading from the lakes, or big waters, to the canals, or small waters. I give below the amount of grain and flour in bushels received into Buffalo for transit in the month of October during four consecutive years:--October, 1858 4,429,055 bushels.
" 1859 5,523,448"
" 1860 6,500,864"
" 1861 12,483,797"
In 1860, from the opening to the close of navigation, 30,837,632bushels of grain and flour passed through Buffalo. In 1861, the amount received up to the 31st of October was 51,969,142 bushels.