The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1878-02-09
AN ENTERPRISE IMPORTANT TO BAL.
T1MORE.

longer in deploring the commercial loss
Baltimore annually sustainS as the re-
suit of a careless appreciation in years
past of the importance and magnitude
of the Peninsuar traffic The problem
now is: How to get it back, or at least
an appreciable portion of it. We claim
that the projected Elkton and Middle
town railroad presents the easiest and
cheapest solution of the problem and
that the project may develop into a
realization, we urge its Importance as
well upon our local capitalists as upon
the merchants and business men of Bal
timore. TO the latter, however, we are
to look for the bulk of the cost of its
construction If sufficient individual
interest can he excited among the mer
chants and active capitalists of that
city in behalf Of the road, it can be
built otherwise We see no prospect OF
its early construction. We believe,
however, that its importance is being
recognized as its advantages are pre-
scented, and that it cannot ultimately
fail for want of the comparatively small
amount Of money its construction will
involve
The general advantages to Baltimore
of this connecting link of railroad have
been forcibly presented, particularly by
that enterprising daily, the Baltimore
Sun" as we'll as by both the local
papers of this county They are obvi-
Gus as we'll as numerous We now
urge only the most striking of them.
Baltimore is universally conceded to be
a superior grain market. She has the
undoubted facilities to make her such
Her vearl yincreaSing export trade is
the best evidence of the fact Her I'M
surpassed harbor and ready outlet to
the ocean. Her immense eranaries and
elevators, into whose vast capacities
two great competing railroad lines daily
pour the grain productions of the West,
constitute advantages indispensable on
the Atlantic seaboard And yet, strange
to saw, with all her local advantages
and facilities for the rapid foreign ship
mcnt of the grain product Of the State,
Of which she is the metropolis. but a
comparatively small proportion of the
grain grown in Maryland finds its way
to her market. Nine of Marvland's
twenty-four counties. and they thicklv
settled by prosperous farmers and fruit
growers, and numbering among them
several of the largest gran-growing
counties of the State, contribute the
wealth Of their annual production to
her commercial rivals, Philadelphia and
New York, simply by reason of a mo-
nopollzing and adverse system of rail-
border as feeders and tenders to which
nearly every Peninsuiar county of Mary
land has its tributary road. We turn
TO the latest census returns at hand.
True they are for the year 1866. aud
probably the grain production of the
Eastern Shore has increased in seven
teen vears-if so, there is more force
in the point we make The aggregate
grain production of the Shore in that
wear was for wheat, corn, oats and rye
nearly ten millions of bushels, or actually
9.O10,799 bushels. What proportion
of this Maryland production reached
Baltimore as a market? For that par
ticular wear we have not the data to
reply But we have the computed re-
turn of Eastern Shore grain sold in
Baltimore through an intelligent gen
tleman, a member of the Corn and
Flour Exchange Of that city, for one of
the best years since 1860 and it only
amounts to an aggregate Of 2.534,79
bushels of wheat, corn, oats and rye
finding in one year a market there
What became of the great balance Of
6,53G, 003 bushels grown in one year
upon our rich Eastern Shore farms that
lid not find a market in Baltimore with
all the boosted advantages of water
transportation to that city close at every
farmers door 1t was shipped by rail
cheaper and quicker to Philadelphia
and possibly other cities further East
than it could be TO Baltimore and look
ing to the advantage Of earlier returns
the grower preferred it shoud go where
it did. Baltimore Was ouI of the line of
railroad competition. A. a market. it
was good enough, bat it was round
about route to get there. Your East
ern Shore grain grower had hauled his
grain by rail within twenty-cight miles
Of a good market (Philadelpha) when
he had got as far as Wilmington on his
route to Baltimore, still seventy miles
away l Mess the inducement of supe-
rior price offered, the difference in dis
lance settled the choice of market.
and Philadelphia instead Of Baltimore
got the Maryland grain. Besides the
discrimination of freights and tariff,
was and still is in favor of Philadel-
phia. This must necessarily remain
the case, so long as it is within so
much easier a railroad distance of the
grower.
Now open your projected Elkton and
Mlddletown connecting link. and, look