40 ITS SUDDEN FALL, 



very first crop of which in many instances realised more than 

 double the cost of the land itself, was so great, that men with 

 their families nocked from their poor farms in the Eastern 

 States, and Lower Canada, in tens of thousands, to this land 

 of promise. In two years the export of wheat rose from two to 

 nine million bushels. The trade in timber, with which the new 

 farms are housed and fenced, increased in like proportion. So 

 sudden and extensive a demand on the carrying resources of 

 the railways led many of them to provide working stock ade- 

 quate for the traffic of a fully peopled and occupied country, 

 their directors hastily concluding that this sudden prosperity 

 would be continuous and progressive. And new lines were 

 started in all directions by local land speculators, and by others 

 who were not slow to profit by the flow of foreign capital which 

 these golden prospects naturally directed to the West. The 

 early anticipations of increasing traffic, upon the hope of which 

 several of the great lines had raised their capital, were already 

 more than realised ; and distant shareholders saw no reason to 

 doubt the sanguine anticipations of directors, who themselves 

 might well have been deceived by such rapid prosperity. 



In this inflated state the money panic of last year fell upon 

 them. The price of wheat dropped a half, the farmers refused 

 to sell, the rate of lake freights fell one half, and the receipts 

 and traffic of the railways began to show a similar decline. 

 The reduced prices continued during winter and spring, and 

 were followed by a cause of even greater discouragement, a 

 season of extraordinary humidity, succeeded by sudden and ex- 

 cessive heat, the effect of which has in many places nearly de- 

 stroyed the wheat crop, and in others reduced it to less than 

 half of an average produce. So general was this unfavourable 

 season in the north-west, that its effects are everywhere visible. 

 After such a summer the autumn has naturally proved unhealthy, 

 and bad crops and bodily ailments coming together, the spirits 



