American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-02-08

The first statements which reached the
Eastern papers from the West to- the
effect that corn was being burned up for
fuel because railway companies charged
90 much for carrying IL to market that it
became of no particular value to the far
mer, were received with many doubts :;
and SOME Journals did not hesitate to pro-
nounce the whole statement romance of
the prairies. Some of the more thoughtful
ones, however, resolved to ascertain what
sort of foundation the story rested upon,
and accordingly dispatched correspond
nois, Kansas and Missouri, and are now
not only convinced Of the thorough genu-
ineness of the statement that corn was be-
ing freely used by the farmers for fuel,
but that manufacturers absolutely buy
corn in vast quantities and burn it in their
furnaces! One of these papers states that
Its correspondent in Central Iowa writes
that corn is drug there at l23 cents. In
some other section of that State 1t is even
cheaper, SO cheap, indeed. that it is used,
where timber Is scarce and dear, for fuel.
In some instances it has been economical
~ used for fuel in manufactures. Such
1Acts ~ these arc well calculated to arouse
the impotence Of the people at the failure
to realize cheap transportation. While
may, perhaps, be justifiable under certa 4
emergencies, as, for instance where the
spIy Is SO superabundant that there is,
pg113cAlly, no other use for 1t, and where
fuel ts scarce and bears an exhorbitant
price; yet In world where there are
hungry people and all the food produced
II needed for human sustenauce and COM
fort, the habitual burning Of corn for fuel
cannot be heard of with Indifference. In
. country like ours we may know that it
implies something wrong in manage
ment, and the first impulse toward inves-
dgation will naturally be in the direction
Of our transportation system. Corn that
can be bought in Iowa at 10 to 20 cents
per bushel, costs IS to so cents bv the
time 1t reaches the seaboard markets, the
difference of 80 to 90 cents representing
the transportation and incidental charges.
Thus, il an Iowa farmer has 500 bushels
OfcOrn which he desires to send to the
seaboard, it will cost him about the home
value Of 400 of them to get the other 100
to the purchaser. Unless this evil can be
speedily remedied, by means of more am
pl e transportation facilities, there is dan
ger Of serious check to agricultural de-
velopment. During years of prolific
crops, like the past year, millions Of BUSH
els Of grain are destroyed and wasted at
the West, because ii cannot be got to mar
ket for a reasonable sum. This condition
Of things has at length arrested the attcn-
fion Of the representative men of the coun-
Try, and the inquiry has already been in
Etituted as to what means ought to be
adopted to cheaper transportation. The
railroads have grown to be stupeudous
mOnOpOlies, and tax the people of the
whole country and of all classes more
heavily than the Federal Government can
venture to tax them. A railroad that costs
twenty millions initiates its stock to forty,
fifty or sixty millions, and then demands
fares from the travelling public and rates
Gf freight from our farmers and merchants
TO pay interest on the inflated or watered
stock. This il more burdensome and in
ses, and goes far TO retard the develop
n,ent of the country.-Ex,