The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1910-09-07
THE SAVING OF
MANY MILLIONS
What a Comprehensive System Of
Waterways Improvement
Means to Farmers.
FIGURES TO SUPPORT THE FACTS
On Shipments of Grain Alone the d.
rect Return Would Mean
$100,oo0,000.

In former. article we give facts and
figures to prove that, if the compre-
hensive plan of waterway improve
ment advocated by the National Riv-
ers and Harbors congress were car
ried out, the direct return to the farm
ers of the country, on the single item
of grain, would certainly be 100000
900 a year-and probably would be
more than twice that sum.
But grain is not the only item on
which the farmers would receive a
benefit. The fact is that for the farm
ers-and everybody else, for that mat
ter-the cost of transportation influ-
ences practically everything he buys,
sells, eats, wears or uses in any way
whatever, except water, air and sun
shine. The average man is inclined to
laugh when told that he pays out more
for transportation than he does for
taxes or because of the taritf-but his
laughter does not alter the fact in the
least.
There are three principal methods
of transportation, the wagonway, the
railway and the waterway, and there
is so great difference in the cost Of
transportation by these different meth
DDS that it is worth while to study the
matter little. The experts of the
good roads bureau estimate the cost
of hauling ton of freight one mile
by horse and wagon on the average
road in the United States at Is cents.
The cost Of thoroughly good, smooth
road might be reduced to 10 cents.
Poor's Manual gives 1882 mills per ton
mile as the average price received by
the railways in 1907, while the official
records kept at the 500 show that the
average rate on the freight carried
into and out of Lake Superior in the
same year was only 8 of one mill.
Facts in Nutshell.
You can better understand what
these figures mean if they are stated
in another way. They mean that if
you have dollar to spend in shipping
q ton of freight you can send it 4
miles on an average road, 10 miles on
a first-class road, 127k miles on rail
road and 1880 miles on lake vessel.
It is very easy to see that good
roads are lot better than poor roads
but that transportation by horse and
wagon is too costly at the best to be
used except for small loads and short
distances. So far as interstate traffic
is concerned the wagdh road must be
left entirely out of consideration. 1t
is just as easy to see what great
of a railway into region where there
was none before, and that a still
greater benefit would result from so
improving a river that it is made
dependaBly navigable when it was not
so before.
Waterways increase prosperity in
three principal ways, viz: direct saw
ing, indirect saving, and by what may
be called a creative effect. The direct
saving is that which occurs on goods
actually carried by water, and some
facts which indicate how great this di-
rect saving is, will also make more
plain the vast difference between the
cost of transportation by rail and by
water.
Through the 500 canal at the out
let of Lake Superior there were car
ried in 1907, 5S,217 PA tons of freight.
This was carried an average distance
of 1888 miles at an average cost of
3 of one mill per ton-mile. If this