Corn and wheat were sent to New Orleans from Illinois in 1823.[455] Albion, Illinois, exported produce, for the first time, in this year. They loaded the flat boats with corn, flour, pork, beef, sausages, and other articles, and floated them down the Wabash into the Ohio, and from thence to New Orleans.[456] Harmony was, annually, sending boats laden with produce to New Orleans.[457] Tranchepain journeyed part of the way down the Ohio in a boat loaded with horses, fowls, iron castings, apples, and whiskey for New Orleans.[458] From St. Louis, a central point on the Mississippi, to New York by way of New Orleans, the price of transportation was about $45 per ton, for a return cargo not less than $80.[459] Beck says, "The export trade must then be divided between New Orleans and New York. She (New Orleans) commands the greatest interior; she is the key to the richest and most extensive inland region of any mercantile capital in the world. Besides the produce required for her own consumption, and that of Louisiana and Mississippi, she will be the entrepot of the produce destined for the West Indies and the provinces of South America. The capital of New Orleans is disproportionate to the quantity of produce landed there. The warmth and unhealthiness of the climate prevents the farmer from sending his produce to that place at a time when he may be most in need of the articles for which he would barter. During this time, he is at present completely deprived of a market for his produce, and is moreover obliged to pay the merchant an exorbitant price for his necessaries. It frequently happens, that in the Western States during the summer and fall, the price of those articles for which they depend upon New Orleans is raised 50 and sometimes 100%. But New Orleans is at all times a very uncertain market. It not unfrequently happens that a few boat loads of produce completely supply the demand.[460] If another cargo then arrives the owner is obliged either to sacrifice it, or leave it in store; in the latter case, if it consists of flour of bacon, it suffers much from the heat and humidity of the climate, and its value is not unfrequently diminished one half or three fourths. This is also the case with furs and several other articles which cannot be transported by New Orleans to a foreign market, without a considerable depreciation in their value. These considerations clearly prove the importance of opening a communication with New York, by which means the States bordering on the Mississippi will be enabled to find a market for their produce during those seasons when they are completely excluded from New Orleans. Even at this time merchants at St. Louis, and in different parts of Illinois and Missouri purchase their goods in the eastern cities, and transport them across the mountains in preference to sending them by New Orleans."[461] For several years all articles of life in Illinois and Missouri, were