PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 285 



one of the corner-stones of civilization. As has been 

 well said by one writer, it smoothes the troubled soul, 

 heals all family feuds, fits one for the annoyances of 

 business, and organizes a truce between the man who 

 drinks it and all the troubles and cares of life. The 

 United States is without doubt a nation of coffee- 

 drinkers, the average annual consumption reaching up- 

 wards of 600,000,000 pounds, or nearly ten pounds per 

 capita of the entire population. 



Up to 1860 there was a wide disparity between the 

 production and consumption of coffee throughout the 

 civilized world, the former remaining stationary while the 

 latter continued to increase rapidly until the civil war, 

 which caused a reduction in this country of nearly 200,000 

 tons per annum, thus re-establishing the relative difference 

 between the laws of supply and demand. With the close 

 of the rebellion, the United States, however, and a 

 reduction of the duty, the consumption again steadily 

 increased, exceeding in a short time the increase in the 

 production, causing a steady advance in prices from 1869 

 to 1880, the extreme advance in prices in the latter year 

 naturally stimulated and increased production until stocks 

 accumulated largely and prices again declined accord- 

 ingly. During the period from 1880-87, planters and 

 dealers suffered greatly, many disastrous failures among 

 both classes following as a consequence. The consump- 

 tion meanwhile continued to increase steadily, as did also 

 the production, owing to the yield of new plantations 

 previously opened under the stimulus of the high prices 

 prevailing in 1880, fair relations between the production 

 and consumption being to the present maintained. 



The history of tariff legislation on coffee in the 

 United States may be summed up in the following 

 sequence : The first duty on coffee was levied in 1789, 



