in nearly the same proportion.

The two great branches of internal trade before the war consisted of the
trade of the Lakes and the canals leading from them to the seaboard, and
the trade of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The latter branch
being interrupted or destroyed by the Rebellion, it follows that at the
present time the principal commerce left to the Atlantic cities is that
of the Great Lakes and the States about them, usually known as the
Northwest.

This commerce amounts at present to at least twelve hundred millions of
dollars annually, and increases so rapidly that all estimates of its
prospective value have hitherto fallen far short of the truth. It
employs about two thousand vessels and twenty thousand sailors, besides
four great lines of railroad. It sends to the seaboard one hundred
million bushels of grain, two million hogs, and half a million of
cattle, composing the principal part of the food of the Atlantic States,
(it being well known that the wheat crop of New York would hardly feed
her people for one third of the year, and that that of New England is
sufficient for only about three weeks' consumption,) and affording a
large surplus for exportation.

In a memorial of the Hon. S. B. Ruggles of New York to President
Lincoln, on the enlargement of the New York canals, he says,--"The
cereal wealth yearly floated on these waters now exceeds one hundred
million bushels. It is difficult to present a distinct idea of a
quantity so enormous. Suffice it to say, that the portion of it (about
two thirds) moving to market on the Erie and Oswego Canals requires a
line of boats more than forty miles long to carry it." On the Lakes it
requires a fleet of five thousand vessels carrying twenty thousand
bushels each. If loaded in railroad-cars of the usual capacity, it would
take two hundred and fifty thousand of them, or a train more than one
thousand miles in length. The four great lines from the Lakes to the
seaboard would each have to run four hundred cars a day for half the
year to carry this grain to market. Speaking of the grain-trade, Mr.
Ruggles says,--"Its existence is a new fact in the history of man. In
quantity, it already much exceeds the whole export of cereals from the
Russian Empire, the great compeer of the United States, whose total
export of cereals was in 1857 but forty-nine million bushels, being less
than half the amount carried in 1861 upon the American Lakes. It was the
constant aim o