“What became of the New York farmer, then?” asked Irv.
“When he found that he couldn’t raise wheat, corn, etc., as cheaply as the western farmer could sell them in New York, he quit raising those things and produced things that paid him instead.”
“What sort of things?”
“Fruits, poultry, milk, butter, eggs, cheese, vegetables, buckwheat, honey, etc., and in producing these the New York farmer grew richer than ever. Since New York quit raising on any considerable scale the things that we commonly think of as farm products, that state has become the richest in the country in the value of its agricultural production, simply because the New York farmer raises only those things for which there is a market almost at his front gate.”
“That is very interesting,” said Will. “But how is it that the far West can furnish New York and Philadelphia and the rest of the eastern cities with bread and meat cheaper than the farmers near those cities can sell the same things?”
“The value of land,” said the planter, “has much to do with it. The value of a farmer’s land is his investment, and first of all, he must earn interest on that.”
“Pardon me,” said Ed, “but that, it seems to me, is a very small factor. The value of good farming lands in the East is not very different from that of similar lands in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and the other great farming states of the West.”
“What is the key to the mystery, then?” asked Irv.
“Transportation,” answered Ed. “The western farm lands, with an equal amount of labor, produce more wheat, corn, pork, and the like, than eastern lands do, and it costs next to nothing to carry their wheat, corn, pork, etc., to the East.”