Commerce in Illinois was in its infancy. Some cattle, corn, pork, and various other commodities were sent at irregular intervals to New Orleans.(218) The fur trade was carried on much as under the French régime. Salt was made at the salt springs on Saline Creek, the labor being performed chiefly by Kentucky and Tennessee slaves under the supervision of contractors who leased the works from the United States. The contractors agreed to sell no salt at the works for more than fifty cents per bushel, but by means of silent partners to whom the entire supply was sold, the price was sometimes raised as high as two dollars per bushel.(219) The commerce of the West suffered from a lack of vessels going from New Orleans to Atlantic ports, and as a result corn sold in New Orleans at fifty cents per bushel in 1805, while in some of the Atlantic ports it sold for more than two dollars. At the same time the West had a good crop, and Kentucky alone could have spared five hundred thousand bushels of corn, if it could have been shipped.(220) To secure laborers was difficult. A petition of 1796 said that farm laborers could not be secured for less than one dollar per day, exclusive of washing, lodging, and boarding; that every kind of tradesman was paid from one dollar and a half to two dollars per day, and that at these prices laborers were scarce. Labor was cheaper on the Spanish side of the Mississippi, because of the larger proportion of slaves.(221) These wages were doubtless high in comparison with those paid in the East, just as the one dollar per day and board paid at the Galena lead mines in 1788 was more than double the wages then paid in New England,(222) but an Illinois price list of 1795 shows that the wages of 1796 were by no means comparable to those of today in purchasing power. Making shoes was two dollars per pair; potatoes were one dollar per bushel; brandy, one dollar per quart; corn, one dollar per bushel.(223)