| Show COMMERCE ON tiie tire LAKES the commerce of the great lakes amounts at present to at least twelve hundred millions of dollars annually and increases so rapidly that all estimates of ii ltd pra spec tive value have hitherto lil ill thero fallen short of the truth it employs about two thousand vessels and twenty thousand sailors besides four great lines of railroad it sends to tile the seaboard one Ji undred hundred million bushels of grain rain two to million hogs and abid a half a million of cattle composing the principal part of theford of the atlantic states and awford afford ing a large surplus for exportation it being well known that the wheat crop of new york would hardly feed her people for one third of the year and that that of new england is sufficient for only abo at three weeks consumption the cereal wealth yearly floated on these waters now exceeds one hundred million bushels itis difficult to present a distinct idea of a quantity so enormous suffice it to say that the portion of it about two thirds moving to market oil on the erie and oswego canals requires a line of boats more than forty miles I 1 long iong to earry carry it on the lakes it requires neet a neet beet of five thousand vessels carrying twenty thousand bushels each if loaded in railroad cars ears of the usual capacity it would take two hundred and fifty thousand miles in length the four great reat lines from the lakes to the seaboard foard ioard would each have to run four tour hundred cars a day for or half the year to carry this grain to market this grain trade is a new fact in the history of man in quantity it already much exceeds tb the e whole export of cereals from the russian E empire tho the great compeer of the united states total export of cereals was in it 1857 but forty nine million bushels being less than half the amount carried in 1864 upon vi the 1 e american lakes it was the constant aim of even in the zenith of its power oer 0 er to provision the capital and the adjacent provinces from the outlying portions of the empire the yearly crop contributed by egypt was fifteen million bushels under bilder the prudent administration of the emperor severus elverus ev erus a large store of corn was accumulated and kept on hand haud sufficient to gua guard r d the empire from famine for seven years the product of 1860 in the five lake states of ohio michigan indiana illinois and wisconsin was three hundred and fifty four million bus bushels lielA N X Y sun san |
