Following the resumption of specie payments the times were good for several years. The production of the precious metals was averaging $75,000,000 or more per year. From 1879 to 1883 we imported about $190,000,000 of gold. Railroad construction reached a higher point than was ever recorded, either before or since, nearly 40,000 miles of track having been laid in five years. All seemed well, when another collapse came in May, 1884. This was preceded by the failure of Grant & Ward, and it was followed by the failure of the Marine and the Metropolitan Ranks. The disclosures of bad faith on the part of men occupying positions of great trust, made the 1884 panic one of distinct characteristics of its own. The previous activity in all lines of enterprise may have made the revulsion timely, but individual dishonesty greatly aggravated the situation.
The panic of 1890, in the United States, was but a reflection of the great Baring failure in London in the fall of that year. This crash was due to South American speculations, and was one of the greatest failures of modern times. It is the opinion of many well-informed financiers that this was one of the causes which operated to produce the panic of 1893 in the United States. The course of the United States in regard to the purchase of silver, doubts as to the tariff, deficiency in revenues—all, perhaps, had their share in creating distrust. But back of these were the conditions superinduced by an era of inflation and speculation. The 1893 panic bore most heavily upon the banks. There was a continued demand upon the Treasury for gold, and the deposits in banks were withdrawn so rapidly that hundreds of failures ensued. The period of depression continued for nearly three years, and has been succeeded by an era of general prosperity, which it is hoped may be long continued.
THE CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN FRUIT CULTURE
By H. E. VAN DEMAN,
Late Prof. of Horticulture, Kansas State Agricultural College.
From the earliest histories of civilization we learn that the cultivation of fruits has been a delightful pastime and also a substantial means of living. Their tempting colors, fragrant perfumes and luscious flavors are unequaled in combined attractiveness and satisfaction to the human senses by anything else among all the products of nature. Their juices are at once appetizing, nutritious, and wholesome. Millions of people have subsisted upon them largely, from time out of mind.
It is, therefore, not a matter of wonder that our forefathers, when they came to the shores of this New World, brought with them seeds, cuttings, and plants of the best fruits they had at their old homes. Thus it was that the apple, pear, peach, plum, cherry, grape, olive, date, almond, European walnut and chestnut, and many other less valuable fruits were first cultivated in North America.
The Beginning.—Previous to the beginning of the nineteenth century there had been considerable development in fruit culture in the colonies. Small apple orchards were quite common in the settlements, from New England to the Carolinas. The pear, peach, plum, grape, and a few other fruits were cultivated in less degree. The Spanish had introduced the peach and orange in Florida, and the French had planted the grape and pear in their sparse settlements in the Mississippi Valley and near the Great Lakes. There are to-day, and yet in a healthy condition, near Detroit, Michigan, several immense pear-trees from these first plantings, that are nearly three hundred years old. The Catholic fathers planted the vine and the olive, and occasionally the date palm, at their mission stations along the Rio Grande and on the Pacific coast.
Thus we see that when the year 1800 ushered in the century now closing, there were many feeble beginnings in the way of fruit culture scattered over the Continent. The Indians, contrary to what we might have supposed, helped materially in the distribution of some of the orchard fruits. In 1799, when General Sullivan made his famous raid against the tribes which composed the historic “Six nations,” he found bearing apple orchards in Western New York. In Southern Canada and Michigan the Indians occasionally planted the apple and pear. The tribes living along the Gulf of Mexico had peach-trees in their little cultivated patches, having obtained the seeds from the Spaniards; and to-day we find the descendants of these Spanish or “Indian” peaches commonly grown throughout all the Southern States, and to some extent all over the peach-growing sections of America.
The Experimental Stage.—During the life of the generation which existed for the first thirty or more years of the century the culture of fruits was still principally in the experimental stage. Some of the foreign species and varieties had not proved satisfactory, and they were being critically tested or abandoned. New varieties were being originated on our own soil. Our native fruits were being brought under culture, too, and with the most satisfactory results in many cases. It was learned that we had in them the foundation of almost unlimited development. Their progeny has revolutionized some lines of fruit culture. This is especially true in our vineyards and berry-fields.