oats twenty-eight cents. In 1890 crops were poor
in most of the grain areas, while prosperous times continued to keep the
consuming public of the manufacturing regions able to buy; consequently
corn and oats nearly doubled in price, and wheat advanced 20 per cent.
Nevertheless, such was the shortage, except in the case of corn, that
the total return was smaller than it had been for a year or two before.
In 1891 bumper crops of wheat, corn, oats, rye, and barley drove the
price down on all except wheat and rye, but not to the level of 1889.
Despite a much smaller harvest in 1892 the decline continued, to the
intense disgust of the farmers of Nebraska and Minnesota who failed to
note that the entire production of wheat in the world was normal in that
year, that considerable stores of the previous crop had been held over
and that more than a third of the yield in the United States was sent
forth to compete everywhere with the crops of Argentine, Russia, and
the other grain producing countries. No wonder the average farmer of the
Mississippi basin was ready to give ear to any one who could suggest a
remedy for his ills.

Cotton, which averaged nearly eleven cents a pound for the decade ending
in 1890, dropped to less than nine cents in 1891 and to less than eight
in 1892. Cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, and mules brought more in the late
than in the early eighties, yet these, too, showed a decline about 1890.
The abnormal war-time price of wool which was more than one dollar a
pound in October, 1864, dropped precipitately with peace, rose a little
just before the panic of 1873, and then declined with almost no reaction
until it reached thirty-three cents for the highest grade in 1892.

The "roaring eighties," with all their superficial appearance of
prosperity, had apparently not brought equal cheer to all. And then came
the "heart-breaking nineties." In February, 1893, the Philadelphia and
Reading Railroad Company failed, a break in the stock market followed,
and an old-fashioned panic seized the country in its grasp. A period of
hitherto unparalleled speculative frenzy came thus to an end, and sober
years followed in which the American people had ample opportunity to
contemplate the evils arising from their economic debauch.

Prices of agricultural products continued their downward trend. Wheat
touched bottom in 1894 with an average price of forty-nine cents; corn,
two years later, reached twenty-one cents. All the other g