Boon's Lick Times

TO THE PEOPLE OF MISSOURI, (No.3.)

"Cheapness" of transportation, it will admit, is of the utmost importance to all avocations that are in any way engaged in sending articles to market or buying those imported; but to an agriculturist, as well as those who deal in crude mineral productions, it is the very essence of their success. The articles to be sent to market, in these avocations, are generally heavy and often very bulky, so as to require the greatest room for storage, and consequently, the item of freight usually bears a large proportion to the value of the article, leaving the produce but a small pittance for a year's toil and care; whereas, the carrier has only had it under his charge for a very few days, and yet often, as things are at present, reaps nearly as large a value as the producer himself. This, however, is not always to be attributed to the cupidity of the carrier, but because the people themselves have either failed or refused to do their duty, in mending the great highways over which their own produce has to pass before it could reach a market: or else have refused to take an interest in getting up the necessary vessels of transportation, and thereby left it in the hands of those whose interest it is to make all the money they can out of the producing classes. It is by a liberal course amongst these, in fostering and bringing into competition such boats and other craft, which are required to carry our produce, that much good is brought about in cheapening transportation; but this is by no means all their duty; they should see that the roads are multiplied as well as made better, the "snags" and "sawyers" cleared out of the larger rivers, and the beds of the smaller ones cleared out, and by locks and dams the navigation so improved, that as far as possible, water transportation should be brought to every man's door; for of all other modes of transportation, for heavy and bulky bodies, that by water is the cheapest, and consequently, every effort ought to be made to improve every stream, in any way susceptible thereof; and of these, we have many, some of which were mentioned in my first number, and of those, the Grand, Osage, Salt and the Merimac are the most prominent; each of which, (except the last) pass a long distance through rich and fertile bodies of land, already well peopled, producing a large surplus, which, by the expensiveness of transportation, is almost denied a market at all. The Merimac passes through, or near a hundred miles, one of the richest mineral countries in America, I might have said the world. The mineral wealth in Iron, Lead and Copper, is entirely inexhaustible, and in many other minerals abundant, which are permitted to lie in their native beds. And why? Because to transport it even to the banks of the Mississippi, would in many instances be more than half the price the article would bring when it was at New Orleans, and this accounts, to some extent, for the fact that the vast and unexplored mineral wealth of this State, has been so overlooked, while the mineral region of Galena has been so extensively worked; the latter, having a water transportation in its midst, while most of the minerals in this State, have to be carried by land, from 50 to 100 miles, over roads not even "made with hands," but which yet almost remain in a natural State, with such accidental improvement as constant travel of the people make to them, and that too, while the Merimac river, in the opinion of the writer, who claims to be fully acquainted with it from its mouth to its source, and hesitates not to declare that the expenditure of from one to two hundred thousand dollars, properly laid out, in making a slack water navigation, would make it navigable for steam craft every day in the year, and also, to venture the opinion, that if made, one year would not elapse till the country through which it passes, would be benefitted in dollars and cents, more than double the sum. The writer does not pretend to any acquaintance with the trade of engineering, but states his opinion upon his comparison of this with other rivers, where this kind of improvement has with great success been made, and need only instance the river from Pittsburg to Brownsville, where a river, totally by nature useless for navigation, has by this kind of improvement been made not only practicable, but safe and profitable, as well to its owners as the public in general; and were such an improvement made on the Merimac, the mineral products that would reach its mouth would astonish even the people who inhabit that astonishing mineral country, and during its whole length it would furnish inexhaustible water power equal to that of any river in the world of its length and size; and such would be the corresponding and beneficial results to the farmers in the vicinity of the Osage, Salt, Grand and other rivers already mentioned, which the writer supposes to be equally susceptible of a like improvement to a very considerable distance from their mouths, and especially the Osage and Grand rivers, as they reach farther than most of the rest, into a country scarcely paralleled, for the richness and fertility of their soils, and whose residents are not only numerous, but thrifty and already have large surplus produce to send to market, (and in the event of the improvement being made, would soon produce ten times as much) but cannot do so now, because the transportation is too expensive.

These are some of the modes of cheapening the transportation of produce to market which occur to me, while there are many others that will readily appear to every thinking man, but which I have not time or room to mention. I commend the subject to the people at large.