AGEICULTUEAL DEPRESSION, 1873 TO 1887 121 



The general depression was aggravated by tlie collapse 

 of agriculture, consequent, in tlie early part of the period, 

 upon a succession of bad harvests. An inclement autumn 

 in 1872 and an unfavourable spring counterbalanced the 

 fine harvest weather of 1873, and the crop fell below the 

 average. The harvest of the next year was excellent and 

 abundant, but it was the last of a cycle of prosperous 

 seasons. Wheat began to fall in 1875, and a succession 

 set in of unsettled seasons with bleak springs and rainy 

 summers. Farmers found everything cheap to sell and 

 dear to buy. The harvests of 1875-6-7 fell far below the 

 average both in quantity and quality. The average price 

 of these three years was bis. as against 57s. 5cZ. in the 

 preceding three years. The potatoes failed, the fruit crop 

 ran short, and the cattle plague was rife. In 1877 land 

 agents began to complain that eligible tenants for vacant 

 farms were scarce. The heavy losses which farmers had 

 suffered from three bad seasons in succession, cattle plague, 

 and scanty hay and root crops, were not compensated by 

 the fine season of 1878. The full force of American com- 

 petition made itself felt when agriculture at home was 

 already thus enfeebled. The Civil War had delayed the 

 impending pressure ; it was now accelerated and inten- 

 sified by the commercial panic in America in 1873, 

 which drove thousands of the working classes out of 

 trade, and settled them down as farmers in the Western 

 States. A general move was made from the Eastern States 

 towards the West. Land was taken up with extraordinary 

 rapidity ; population sprang up with a bound in districts 

 which were unclaimed and uninhabited except by the large 

 stockowners, who pastured their herds on open prairies 

 which now yield abundance of corn. The effect was at 

 once felt in the price of grain. The series of bad seasons 



