of sheep the bell wether, the political factotum of the countryside, and surrendered its rights to the railways. The face of the country withered, as though stricken by a famine, under their remorseless demands. The fact that makes canal navigation not alone possible but profitable is that speed represents cost.
That which constitutes a profitable canal is not a dividend on the investment, but in augmenting the volume of trade. The profit that accrues is prospective, not immediate, and belongs to the people; a theory of public utilities that the state of New York never adopted.
Let us see what this meant to the farmer and the manufacturer. The manufactured product was of coarsest character, hoops, staves, shingles and sawed lumber, material that could not afford to pay a higher tariff for transportation. This was practically cut out. Farm produce was of a like character; potatoes, cabbage, onions and apples demanded a moderate price for carriage if they were to make a living return to the grower. These were no longer seen by the boatload except within wheeling distance of the Erie; a small supply was received from the Cayuga and Seneca canals. The wheat crop, as already noticed, had disappeared. Barley and oats, in the cheap days of 1870, represented little money to the grower, and hay at six and seven dollars a ton, including the cost of baling, was impossible as freight. It was reasonable to expect that the roads would not work against these products an impossible tariff. The way station received but little notice. It was the fatal long haul, that has caused so many crimes against commerce, that was at fault. It cost more to stop and side-track than to make the continuous trip.
In 1872 the amount carried was 156,999 tons. This did not represent much in commercial value. But, this was only a minor part of its true worth. Imagine the condition had the slight sacrifice been made of maintaining the lateral canals for the past thirty-five years, with over 1,500,000 population added. These derelict canals would have been a treasure-trove to the inhabitants. An English author upon the subject expresses the idea perfectly when he states "that where canals do not pay, they pay by increasing the volume of trade."
The coal transported by lateral canals was 411,918 tons, sufficient to compel the roads to meet the cheap water rate. An instance on the Black River Canal, now used as a feeder to the Erie, illustrates what happened to the people of the lake region. The last station on the canal paid at retail three dollars a ton for coal; the town above, served by the railroad, paid five and a half per ton. The saving on freight, in thirty-five years, had the canals been the rate maker, would have amounted to more than a million and a half dollars yearly.
The waterways of the Iroquois were, from the nature of their distribution, natural waterways; while the Erie connected two termini.
