Show TRADE ON SOUTHERN RIVERS queer looking flatboats Flat boats used deed by peddlers on water queer looking flatboats Hat flat boats varying lu in size and capable of carrying many tons of freight having on board a rude home for the owner are again beginning to ply up and down the broad expanse of the ohio river and its tributaries tributa ries one in particular has attracted the attention of the farmers through N whose lands it t occasionally wends bends its way it fait has been fittingly named the american trader in that it Is a veritable floating store and funkhouse junk house according to river men the life of the water trader is far more pleasant 1 A trading boat than that of the average peddler whose vocation necessitates the frequent cleaning and continual looking after a horse then again there are enough residents alonga the larger rivers to make an inland trip altogether unnecessary the trading boats are supplied with v groceries and provisions of all kinds and take in exchange such articles as butter eggs iron wool and bones when laden it puts off to some town and there sells its accumulation of s stock it is said that long before the war the flatboat was used to take produce down the rivers but that thata with its t passing came the modern barge now almost a novelty yet often a useful one As a general rule these traders keep to the smaller streams like the wabash and white rivers that are not so easy of navigation by the larger steamers |