through time of steamers this season been suppressed, the governor of the State would not have imagined five-day trips from Buffalo to New York, as per his message, and our city editors would not have ventilated such visionary pretensions. There are a multitude of horse-boat captains that can reduce their _net canal time of movement_ below the _Baxter's_, which has been so extensively commented upon; but their so doing would not expedite the transfer of grain from the lakes to tide-water. A certain horse-boat, in a former season, made two round trips from Buffalo to and from New York in twenty days each, and on each trip lay three days in New York. This made her through time _average_ between the cities 8-1/2 days each way. Her captain once towed in the "Line" and was only nine days twenty hours from Buffalo to New York. This season a horse-boat made the round trip from New York to and from Buffalo in twenty-one days. These _round trips_ have probably never been exceeded by steam. In the former era the prism of the canal seemed imbedded with innumerable old and broken tow-lines, which the propeller, by its high velocity, sucked up, and was thereby "fouled;" and now the sea-grass is a hidden enemy that entwines itself around the propeller to foul it. When the waters are low, forcing the engines of screw propellers lets the stern of the boat "squat" or hug the bottom, and although these are minor features of want of mechanical adaptation to canal duty, they illustrate petty detentions serving to lengthen the through times of steam. Hence, if we intermix the slow steamers with the fast ones, as we do the slow with the fast horse-boats, for a _general average_, it is quite probable that horse-times are fully equal to those of steam, and that the excess of horse-cargoes makes a large and handsome advantage in their favor. _Therefore, under this general average, steam in 1872 is less economical than horses._ CONDITIONAL EXPLANATIONS. Because steam has been encouraged by the Legislature, heralded by the press, and favorably reported by the Executive officers of the State as a standard of advancement most desirable to attain, _a supposition very generally prevails outside of canal men that it will succeed_. As early as 1845, before the enlargements, three steamers were built and tried, and one, the _Pioneer_, ran from New York to Oswego in five days, total time, 362 miles; and _then "supposition very generally prevailed that steam would succeed_." But light freights would not pay then as against full horse-freights; neither would they pay from 1858 to 1862; neither have they paid in 1872, as against horses.