Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1897-10-21
A TREMENDOUS WHEAT CROP
Five Hundred Thousand Cars
Required to Move 1t.
ITS VALUE ABOUT $3O0,OOO,OOO
One-haIf of Which Will Come
Across Atlantic.
Indianapolis News.

An ordinary freight car will hold
1000 bushels vi wheat. Ii will require
6OO GOO cars to move the present crop j;
coupled together in single train they
would reach from New York almost to
San Francisco. a fleet of ordinary
rain-carrying vessels will be hardly
enough to transport to Europe the part
OF the crop that will be exported. Ii
the Erie Canal gets only its usual
share Of the grain carrying BUSINESS
10, 600 canal boats will be filled with
wheat, enough to make tow half as
long as the canal itself.
II We put the figures in the form of
dollars and cents. the array is even
more striking. Half million bushels
Of wheat at 60 cents a bushel-the
average price that tine farmer is receiv-
ing-means $500, 600, 600. Three hundred
millions to be expended in lifting
mortgages, paying labor, buying food
and clothing and agricultural imple-
ments is itself powerful spur to pros
perity. But this is not all. To trans
port the grain from the fields to the
Atlantic seaboard costs about 20 cents
q bushel. On the portion of the crop
which must be moved half across the
continent this will mean tens of mil
lions of dollars forth railways and ele-
vatora, lake vessels and canal boats, for
the commission man and the laburer.
Europe must pay we'll for all she takeH,
and that means $3.50. 900, 600 or more
coming across the Atlantic to pay for
American wheat. And not to carry tho
enumeration to wearisome length, it
will suffice merely to refer to the share
of this golden harvest which will be
reaped by the miller, the manufacturer
.,f oSE Loco
directly affected.
This rich bounty, go great and so
widespread, is not won without vast
expenditure of human effort. The way
in which this food of yellow grain il
moved, controlled and directed is highly
interesting as an object lesson in
modern industrial development. 1t 10
interesting, too, to note thut if the
present crop is the largest of recent
years tie facilities for handling it are
also the most perfect This year, 1897,
has seen the largest harvesting machine,
the biggest grain carrying boats and
the most gigantic elevator ever built.
Out in Redlands, Cal, they have
been cutting grain this season with a
harvester that is truly mammoth of
its kind. 1t has a cutting bar over 90
feet in width, cuts the grain, thrasbes
III lI6b IL up Ill bdChb ouL
hundreds of these sacks an hour. In
going mile this machine reaps nearly
10 acres, and does more work than our
grandsire, with his cradle, scythe and
fail, could in whole season.
This is the starting point of the
wheat on its journey marketward. The
sacks that are thrown out by the great
harvesters are gathered up in wagons
and driven off to the nearest railway
station, where they are dumped into
grain cars or small storage warehouses,
a grain car is an ordinary box car
fitted with an inside partition and an
extra door of planking that can be let
down, making the car perfectly tight.
The cars from the various branch lines
are hurried off as soon as loaded to one
of the great transfer stations, of which
Kansas City and Duluth are perhaps
the largest. There it is turned over
to tho big trunk lines or lake vessels for
the next stage of the journey.
The extraordinary demand for wheat
in the Eastern markets has led 10 AN
unusual state Of affairs in Kansas City
and other Western shipping points dur
ing the last few weeks. The grain has
been required for shipment as fast as
it came in, SO that it has not been
allowed to lie in the elevators at all.
1t has been found, however, that the
easiest way to transfer it is to run it
through the elevators. Accordingly,
the cars from local points are run in on
one side of the elevator, and cars. or ia
Duluth the boats, for the East on the
other. One leg of the telescope chute,
with its endless belt of cups, is lei
down on the receiving side, and the
grain ia hoisted up TO the lofty roof of
the elevator and rushes down on the
opposite side without pausing q
moment in the transfer The elevator
men have thus been able still to collect
their toll of q cent bushel for trans
ferring the grain.
There are two great wheat routes
from the West to the Atlantic ssahoard.
One is water route by the great laket
and the Erie Canal, ami the other il
land route via the four great grain
carrying trunk lines. The former is the
cheaper and the latter is the more OK.
peditious. The competition between
the two prevents the prices of trans
portation from rising to an exorbItant
height Tine larger part of the grair
moved between Duluth and New Yorp
City travels by combination water
and land route, in big steel freight boats
down the lakes to Buffalo. and thence by
rail to New York. The lake rate from
Duluth to Buffalo is 21a cents a busbe
during the busy season, and, as thu
newer grRinshIps have carrying
capacity Of 160 900 bushels, the bust
ness is profitable one for them
AT present there are nearly 700 veHsel
which are engaged, for part of tn,
season at least, in carrying wheat OF
the lakes. This ia more than are en-
ployed in moving the export crop acros
the Atlantic, and, what may seem NOR
surprising, the largest lake vessels arr
considerably larger than the ordinar,
ocean craft engaged in the same line o
work. The Few craft of modern etee
construction, which have been put oil
the lakes within the last two season
by the Great Northern Co., are anon!
the finest models Of American bull
merchant vessels.
At Buffalo the grain that is brough
down the lakes again passes through th
elevators for reshipment TO New Yori
and l}oston. Its fortunate position ha
made Buffalo one of the greatest grail
ports in the world. Two new elevator
which are now in process OF completion
thure are the largest in the world, ant
embody some new and interesting ar
engagements for the handling and storag
Of grain. The larger of these ia til
Great Northern elevator, which vii
have a capacity when completed O
1000, 600 bushels. The other will bt
known as the electric elevator and il
helng pull for capacity OF LOCO, 00t