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Antebellum Interregional Trade in Agricultural Goods: Preliminary Results

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Colleen M. Callahan  and
William K. Hutchinson
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Abstract

This paper provides evidence regarding the extent of antebellum trade in major agricultural products between the West and the Northeast, the types of products involved, and the magnitude of surpluses or deficits. We found that West-Northeast trade was more important than West-South trade.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 25 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1980

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References

1 North, Douglass C., “Location Theory and Regional Economic Growth,” Journal of Political Economy, 62 (June 1955), 243–58Google Scholar; and North, , The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860 (New York, 1961)Google Scholar.

2 Gallman, Robert E., “Self-Sufficiency in the Cotton Economy of the Antebellum South,” in Parker, William N., ed., The Structure of the Cotton Economy of the Antebellum South (Washington, D. C., 1970).Google Scholar Also see Hutchinson, William K. and Williamson, Samuel H., “The Self-Sufficiency of the Antebellum South: Estimates of the Food Supply,” this Journal, 31 (Sept. 1971), 591–612Google Scholar; and Herbst, Lawrence A., “Interregional Commodity Trade from the North to the South and American Economic Development in the Antebellum Period,” this Journal, 35 (March 1975), 264–70Google Scholar.

3 Fishlow, Albert, “Antebellum Interregional Trade Reconsidered,” in Andreano, Ralph, ed., New Views on American Economic Development (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), p. 189Google Scholar; and Hutchinson and Williamson, “The Self-Sufficiency,” pp. 608–09. North has argued that by the 1840s the Northeast displaced the South as the primary market for western foodstuffs; pp. 103–10 in The Economic Growth.

4 U. S. Census for Agriculture and Population (Washington, D. C., 1841, 1851, 1862Google ScholarPubMed). The states included in the regions are: Northeast: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland; West: Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa; South: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

5 Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Years 1845 to 1860, Part II: Agriculture (Washington, D. C., 1845–1860)Google Scholar.

6 Seaman, Ezra, Essays on the Progress of Nations (New York, 1852; rpt. 1967)Google Scholar.

7 Annual Report of Commerce and Navigation (Washington, D. C., 1840, 1850, 1860)Google Scholar. Net exports were computed by subtracting imports minus re-exports from total exports of domestic production for each commodity. In 1840 and 1850, net exports were not available by customs district as they were in 1860. Since exports from the Northeast and West accounted for nearly all exports of domestic output, however, we assumed that all U. S. exports for 1840, 1850, and 1860 came from the West and/or the Northeast. Due to the lack of export data by customs district, we were only able to provide “net of exports” values for national data. Dollar values were converted to quantities by dividing with a representative price for the particular year.

8 Various writers cite from 5 to 8 bushels per person as a common allocation of wheat, but one can quickly see that the regional production only exceeds 5 bushels per capita in 1860. Even if those other than male laborers consumed much less, it becomes apparent that cornmeal must have been substituted for wheat flour, at least in the corn-abundant West. Given the relative prices of wheat and corn and the relative costs of producing flour and cornmeal, the corn-abundant western farmer would have increased his income by selling wheat and using more corn.

9 Potato consumption was reported as between 3 and 5 bushels in the literature. Although yearly production was below this in many western states, it is likely that grain was used to supplement potato consumption.

10 In 1840, the West's surplus was not quite enough to erase the Northeast's deficit. According to the Annual Report of the Secretary of State of Ohio (Columbus, 1860, 1878)Google Scholar, 1860 seems to have been an exceptionally good year for corn: bushels per acre increased from 29.5 in 1859 to 38.2 in 1860 (1878, p. 494), and prices were falling in the Cincinnati market from $.72 in 1858–59 to $.50 in 1859–60 (1860, p. 638).

11 Since the swine stock grew very little during this period, the assumption of a constant stock is made that yields the ratio of 0.67 used by Hutchinson and Williamson, “Self-Sufficiency,” pp. 610–12. Assuming that 75 percent of the swine was edible and that the average weight was 200 pounds, we were able to calculate the supply of swine meat. The supply of beef is found using the same values as were used by Hutchinson and Williamson, pp. 604–05. Both of these methods tend to underestimate the supply of meat.

12 This method exaggerates the size of any deficit, such as that of meat in the Northeast.

13 One need only reduce all per capita demands by 35 pounds to offset the deficit in 1860. Allotments of 180 and 120 pounds were very common. This ignores the use of mutton, poultry, and fish. The latter was especially important for the Northeast.

14 The swine/human population ratio declined between the 1840 Census and that of 1860 in the United States as a whole and in each region considered here. See Bidwell, P. W. and Falconer, J., History of Agriculture in the Northern United States (New York, 1941)Google Scholar. This lends some support to Robert Fogel's argument that changes in animal husbandry took place during this time, but the difficulty of establishing a trend on the basis of the three census years remains.

15 “Between 1859–1860 and 1862–1863, it [hog weight] increased each year, the range being from 189 to 293 pounds. A large crop was practically always accompanied by a high average weight and conversely.” Berry, Thomas Senior, Western Prices before 1861: A Study of the Cincinnati Market (Cambridge, Mass., 1943), p. 231Google Scholar.

16 In 1858, 11.7 million bushels of corn were distilled in Ohio; in 1860, whiskey exports amounted to 5.1 million bushels of corn or about half the total amount distilled (Annual Report of Secretary of State of Ohio, 1860Google Scholar).

17 Also see Berry, Western Prices, for range of hog weights.

18 The apparent surpluses of over 100 million bushels of corn in both 1850 and 1860 were not very large when viewed on a per capita basis, 6.72 bushels and 5.5 bushels respectively. Most of this could have been consumed as corn liquor or fed to poultry. Some reports indicate farmers left quantities of grain in the fields for wild animals.