When we say that Chicago exports thirty millions of bushels of grain, and is the largest market in the world, many persons doubtless believe that these are merely Western figures of speech, and not figures of arithmetic. Let us, then, compare the exports of those European cities winch have confessedly the largest corn-trade with those of Chicago.
1854. Bushels of Grain.
Odessa, on the Black Sea, 7,040,000
Galatz and Bruilow, do., 8,320,000
Dantzic, on the Baltic, 4,408,000
Riga, do., 4,000,000
St. Petersburg, Gulf of Finland, 7,200,000
Archangel, on the White Sea, 9,528,000
—————
40,496,000
Chicago, 1860, 30,000,000
or three-quarters of the amount of grain shipped by the seven largest corn-markets in Europe; and if we add to the shipments from Chicago the amount from other lake-ports last year, the aggregate will be found to exceed the shipments of those European cities by ten to twenty millions of bushels. Will any one doubt that the granary of the world is in the Mississippi Valley?
The internal commerce of the country, as it exists on the lakes, rivers, canals, and railroads, is not generally appreciated. It goes on noiselessly, and makes little show in comparison with the foreign trade; but its superiority may be seen by a few comparisons taken from a speech of the Hon. J.A. Rockwell, in Congress, in 1846.
In the year 1844, the value of goods transported on the New York Canals was….. $92,750,874
The whole exports of the country in 1844……… 99,716,179
The imports and exports of Cleveland the same year amounted to the sum of…… $11,195,703
The whole Mediterranean and
South American trade, in 1844,
amounted to……. 11,202,548
And if, as we have shown, the trade of one of these lake-ports, in 1855, amounted to over four hundred millions, we may safely claim that the whole lake-commerce in 1860 exceeds the entire foreign trade of the United States.