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Show ALL ARE CUED IMPROVEMENT OF NATION'S VA. TERWAYS OF INTEREST TO EVERY CITIZEN. VITAL FACTS ARE PRESENTED Cot of Getting Grain to Market Materially Mate-rially Reduced Through Shipment by Water Benefits Distributed All Over the Country. You may not know It you probably don't but It Is a matter of Importance to, you whether the waterways of the United Slates are improved or not and this Is true no matter who you ar?, what your business Is, or what part of the country you live In. It cony be that you are a farmer and you tell mo that it Is nonsense to say that it can make any difference to you whether the waterways of thn country are Improved 0r not. because you live away out west, miles away fr3 any river which Is navigable now O' erer will be. Well, 1 admit that It lo not as easy t soe as the grain elevator down at four railway 6tatlon. but the benefit is there Just the same a real, sure-enough, sure-enough, dollars and cents benefit. Waterways Wa-terways have already been of tremendous tremen-dous advantage to the farmers of the country and their further Improvement Improve-ment will put more money Into your pockets and those of your neighbors. TaJte gTaJn for an Illustration. A large part of the grain raised In the country Is shipped away from the place where It Is grown, some for use lu t eastern states and some for ox-j ox-j pc:rt o Europe. Under those conditions condi-tions the price of grain is not fixed at the nearest railway station. Your wheat, for Instance, Is worth Just what It a 111 bring In Liverpool less the cost of getting It there. You can see at enco that It makes a whole lot of difference to you how much It costs to stnd your grain to New York or Liverpool and ( there's where the waterway cornea In. Where Economy Comes In. In 1 08 tho average cost of carrying wheat from Chicago to Buffalo by lake was one cent a bushel, while the cost by rail D New York was 11.7 cents almost twelve times as much, although the dlstaruro Is the same. But gTaJn which Is to go all the way by water must be transferred to canal boats at Buffalo. Little canal boats drawn by I iuleh cannot carry stun as cheaply as big ships driven by steam, so the . through rate by water was six cents ' u bushel, a little over half as much as by rail. For the tweuty years ending end-ing with 1008 the water rateTon the arrage. was lower than the rail rate b? 6.2 cents a bushel. On the shipments ship-ments from I-nke Superior the difference differ-ence was greater still, since Duluth Is le,ci3 han 10 miles farther from New York than Chicago Is by water and nearly ouo miles farther by rail, but no comparative rates are published. Tho bvneficip.l effects of the waterway, water-way, through lowered cost of transportation, transpor-tation, are not confined to the grain shipped from cities on tho lakes, but extend to practically all the grain produced. The total production of the five principal cereals wheat, corn, oats, barley and rye during the past 40 years, was over 120.000,000,000 bushels If the average addition to the value of this vast volume of grain was five cents a bushel, and that seems a moderate figure in view of the facts stated above, the total Is more than $G,ino,nOO.OOn nearly all of wbieh has gone into the pockets of the fanners. , Rut while the beneficial effect of tho waterways extends to a surprising distance, dis-tance, a waterway close by exerts a very much more direct and powerful influence than one a long way off If the Great Lakes and the Erie canal have Increased the value of grain all over the west, what do you suppose would happen If the Mississippi, Missouri, Mis-souri, Arkansas and Red rivers were so Improved that boats could run every ev-ery day In the year unless hindered by lec? Money Needed for Work. The National Rivers and Harbors congress is working for the Improve mcnt of tho rivers, harbors and water ways In all parts ot the linked States. Chairman Alexander of the livora and barbcre committee, sayi that $339,000,-000 $339,000,-000 will complete every project which has been begun or ha5 beon recommended recom-mended by tho army engineers. Five hundred million dollars would probably prob-ably finish up all of thce and all tho new projects which will be surveyed and adopted w ithin the next few yearn. The average annual production of the five principal cereals, which during dur-ing the latt ten years has been 4,151,-tiOit.uOO 4,151,-tiOit.uOO bushels, has been steadily Increasing In-creasing and will probably continue to increase for tome time to come. The complete Improvement of all our waterways would Increase the value of every bushel of grain produced pro-duced by at least five cents my own opinion is that It would be" more than that. But let us be on the safe side. Suppose Sup-pose we spend a billion dollars on waterways Instead of a half-billion; bupi -;se that the production of grain remains as It li Instead of Increasing; and suppose that the price of grain Is Increased only 2',i cents a bushel Instead In-stead of five ' Even 60. with production stationary, the expense doubled and the benefit cut in half, the whole J1.000.000.000 would be returned In lews than ten years In the Increased price of grain alone. |