Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1884 — St. Louis Commerce and Manufacture. [ARTICLE]

St. Louis Commerce and Manufacture.

St Louis is probably central to a greater food-producing eitliel; 'Jhicago, Cincinnati, or New Orleans. £t must alwayß be a great shipping narket for gram, and has this advantage, that the Mississippi remains open o much longer in the winter than the lorthem route by the lakes. It appears o have been in the year 1881 the largest market for wheat and flour in the world, and in produce, provisions, and ive stock second only to Chicago. Its •entral position makes it an eligible >oint for handling the products of both Northern and Southern States. Cotton nd tobacco, to an enormous value, rom the one join the cereals and lum- * *er of the other. It is the largest -urely inland cotton market in the vorld, though led in this respect by a umber of seaports. It has received in : • year very nearly half a million bales. This. marketing of supplies was the eginning, as it is the staple, of its rosperity, and is connected with its tuation on the great river. St. Louis ounts, in the Mississippi and 240 naviable tributaries, no less than 16,000 dies of waterway, to which steamboats om its levee penetrate, carrying arti- ' ies up and down. Professor Waterouse, of the Washington University, : t an interesting pamphlet on the re- - vurces of Missouri.as far back as 1869, * ted a solid mile and a half of steamoats lying at this levee, and what it * « grown to be since I have not space show here. Upon this basis, later, ! as grown up a manufacturing interest ' f importance commensurate with the ■' st. Some 3,000 varied establish- * ents turn oat an annual profit of $104,and put St. Louis seventh in * e list of manufacturing cities. For first time Cincinnati, which figures > vth m this list, leads her as a rival. here are points in which Cincinnati is ' ‘‘Tj similar to St. Louis, and others in ’ueh it is much more wide-awake and - vanced, though it has 100,000 lees •pulation. A study into the differences 1 >d resemblances of the two would be interesting to make, but it would boa atier of speculative interest merely, - uoe the question of rivalry, at St "mis, is directed at Chicago, and licago only.— William Henry Bishop, 'ii Harper' * Magcui •»