1898, appear more fully in the following table.
-----------------+---------------+------------------
Years. | Total debt. | Debt less cash in
| | the Treasury.
-----------------+---------------+------------------
1857, July 1 | $28,699,831 | $9,998,621
1860, ” 1 | 64,842,287 | 59,964,402
1861, ” 1 | 90,580,873 | 87,718,660
1862, ” 1 | 524,176,412 | 505,312,752
1863, ” 1 | 1,119,772,138 | 1,111,350,737
1864, ” 1 | 1,815,784,370 | 1,709,452,277
1865, August 31 | 2,844,649,626 | 2,756,431,571
1873, July 1 | 2,234,482,993 | 2,105,462,060
1879, ” 1 | 2,245,495,072 | 1,996,414,905
1889, ” 1 | 1,619,052,922 | 975,939,750
1893, ” 1 | 1,545,985,686 | 838,969,475
1895, December 1 | 1,708,871,670 | 948,477,612
1896, July 1 | 1,769,840,323 | 955,297,253
1897, ” 1 | 1,817,672,665 | 986,656,086
1898, ” 1 | 1,796,531,995 | 1,027,085,492
-----------------+---------------+------------------
In 1865 the annual interest charge on the public debt was $150,977,697.
In 1898 it was only $34,387,408.
From 1791 to 1898 the gross receipts of the Government were
$30,547,063,336.06 and the gross expenditures $29,768,597,237.24. The
net ordinary receipts, which do not include loans or proceeds from the
issue of Treasury notes, were $405,321,335.20 for the fiscal year ended
June 30, 1898, and the net ordinary expenditures, which do not include
payments on account of premiums or interest on the public debt, were
$405,783,526.57.
VIII. POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS.
Many believe that a system of postal savings banks could be generally
introduced into the United States. Such banks doubtless appeal to those
who have more confidence in the Government than in any association of
individuals. Their safety may be conceded, for when the Government
fails other institutions are likely to go the same way. But when
people deposit money in a postal savings bank, they make a loan to
the Government. This implies that the Government must be a perpetual
borrower, whereas, until recent years, the United States has been a
debt-paying nation, and in the course of affairs may soon be again.
Unless we are to have a large permanent debt, the deposits in postal
savings banks would have to be invested in general securities. Such
investments could not well be made by the post-office officials of the
country.
In Great Britain these banks have been in existence for about
thirty-eight years, and their number has grown to about 12,000, with
more than 6,000,000 depositors. The system prevails in a number
of other countries. The more concentrated and paternal system of
government prevalent in countries having these banks renders their
management a much less difficult problem than it would be in the
United States with our large areas, vast number of post-offices, and
general diversity of conditions. In Great Britain the deposits in
the postal savings banks are made at the money order post-offices in
a pass book held by the depositor. Withdrawals are made by filling
up blank forms, and these withdrawals may be made at any money order
post-office. Deposits are invested in the public debt, and the rate of
interest is about two and one half per cent. The postal savings banks
of Great Britain contain deposits approximating $527,000,000; those of
France, $152,000,000; those of Italy, $90,000,000; those of Belgium,
$67,000,000; those of Canada, $31,000,000.
IX. SAVINGS BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES.
There are no worthier financial institutions in the country to-day
than the savings banks. Most of these are organized on what is known
as the mutual plan. They have no capital, no stockholders, and all the
assets are held in trust for the benefit of the depositors. They are
managed by a board of trustees, who serve without pay. The investments
which the banks are permitted to make are generally restricted to
high-class securities insuring safety. The savings banks in New York
State, especially, are closely restricted in investing their funds, and
failures in recent years are almost unknown. A deposit in one of these
banks is hardly less safe than an investment in Government bonds. The
savings banks are the primary schools of economy and thrift, and I
believe that an extension of the mutual savings bank system throughout
the country, under proper legal safeguards, would be of the greatest
benefit to the people of the United States.
The deposits in banks of this kind are usually limited by law to
amounts not exceeding $3000 to one depositor, as they are not intended
to be used by the wealthier class of people. The following statistics
will be found interesting.
SAVINGS BANKS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1857–1897.
(Statement of condition for each period of ten years.)
---------------------+-----------+------------+------------+-
| 1857 | 1867 | 1877 |
---------------------+-----------+------------+------------+-
Number of banks | 231| 371| 675|
Number of depositors | 490,428| 1,188,202| 2,395,314|
Amount of deposits |$98,512,968|$337,009,452|$866,218,306|
Average to each | | | |
depositor | 200| 283| 361|
---------------------+-----------+------------+------------+-
---------------------+--------------+--------------
| 1887 | 1897
---------------------+--------------+--------------
Number of banks | 684| 980
Number of depositors | 3,418,013| 5,201,132
Amount of deposits |$1,235,247,371|$1,939,376,035
Average to each | |
depositor | 361| 372
---------------------+--------------+--------------
In addition to the mutual and stock savings banks in the United States,
a system of school savings banks, introduced into the schools of the
United States by J. H. Thiry, of Long Island City, N. Y., is worthy of
mention. Such banks have been very successful in inculcating habits of
thrift and economy among the children of the country.
X. THE CLEARING-HOUSE.
A clearing-house may be defined as an institution for saving time,
money, and labor. Its underlying principle is that of setting off one
claim against another.
A bank in a large city receives every day in its mail a great number
of checks or drafts drawn on banks in the same place. It does not
present these checks directly to the banks on which they are drawn
for payment, but sends them by messenger to the clearing-house. Let
us say, for illustration, that the First National Bank presents to
the clearing-house checks on other banks amounting to $100,000. At
the same time the other banks send to the clearing-house checks they
have received drawn on the First National Bank, aggregating $75,000. A
payment of $25,000 in money to the First National Bank will be all the
cash required to pay checks representing $175,000. The economy in the
use of money is still better illustrated by the following statement of
an actual transaction. On a day in the latter part of 1898 the Bank
of the State of New York took to the New York Clearing-House checks
on other banks amounting to $15,647,583.82, and other banks brought
checks against it amounting to $15,647,401.85. The sum of these items
was $31,294,985.67, and they were paid with $181.97 in money, which
represents the credit balance due to the Bank of the State of New York.
This instance shows what large transactions may be effected with small
sums of money by employing proper banking machinery. Banks multiply the
usefulness of money many fold.
The New York Clearing-House Association was organized September
13, 1853, and the first clearing made by the Association took
place on October 11, 1853. The banks belonging to the New York
Clearing-House Association reported on April 1, 1899, loans and
discounts, $779,951,100; deposits, $898,917,000; specie, $187,114,300;
circulation, $13,870,600.
[Illustration: NEW YORK CLEARING-HOUSE.]
CLEARING-HOUSE LOAN CERTIFICATES.—These are simply devices that the
banks have invented for use in times of panic. They are issued by a
committee of the Clearing-House Association on the deposit of approved
securities by the bank desiring them, and are used only to settle
balances between the banks. They are not money, but serve a useful
purpose in diminishing the demand for money; for when the banks agree
to accept these certificates among themselves, it makes that much money
available to be loaned or paid to depositors. In 1893, and in other
years of financial stringency, the issue of these certificates afforded
great relief to business interests and saved the country from some of
the most disastrous results consequent upon such panics.
These certificates are not to be confounded with clearing-house gold
certificates issued by the Association on deposits of gold coin. They
are used in making payments of balances between banks, and obviate the
necessity of frequently passing the actual coin from hand to hand.
On April 11, 1898, the clearings at the New York Clearing-House for
that day amounted to $352,882,567—the largest amount ever reported up
to that time. The balances to be paid in money were $17,345,452, or
only about five per cent. For the year 1898 the bank clearings at New
York were $41,971,781,684, and for the whole country, $68,750,000,000.
An investigation of the amount of credit paper used respectively in the
wholesale and retail trade was made by the Comptroller of the Currency
in 1896. In his report for that year the Comptroller says: “From the
face of the returns the conclusion to be drawn is that 67.4 per cent of
the retail trade of the country is transacted by means of credit paper
(checks), that 95.3 per cent of the wholesale trade is so carried on,
95.1 per cent of business other than mercantile, and 92.5 per cent of
all business.”
XI. PANICS AND THEIR CAUSES.
A panic is generally due to inflation and speculation, and these, of
course, have their origin in various sources not easily determined.
An unusual increase in the production of precious metals, bountiful
crops, a speculative craze taking possession of the public—such as
the tulip mania in Holland—all these and many other causes lead to
speculation. The fall in prices due to a stoppage in speculation brings
on the panic. Sometimes the catastrophe is produced by war or rumors
of war, often by the most trivial circumstances, and not infrequently
without any apparent cause. Before everybody had desired to buy; they
now became as eager to sell, and this rush to convert securities and
commodities into money precipitates a panic.
Crises may be divided into commercial and financial. The last one in
the United States, whatever may have been its ultimate developments,
was in its inception and culmination essentially a financial panic. The
Treasury and the banks were both regarded with more or less distrust.
Panics or crises more or less severe have occurred in the United
States in 1814, 1818, 1826, 1837–39, 1848, 1857, during the Civil War,
1861–65, 1873, 1882, 1884, 1890, 1893. Some of these should hardly
be called panics, as they were mere local disturbances. Different
causes have been given for each of these revulsions. Overtrading and
speculation were doubtless responsible for them. The panic of 1857
was coincident with large net imports of merchandise. On August 24,
1857, the onward wave of prosperity, which had been steadily rising
to a great height, received a check by the failure of the Ohio Life
Insurance and Trust Co., followed by numerous other failures. On
October 4 every bank in New York, except the Chemical, suspended specie
payments, and they did not resume until December 12.
The speculation in gold in 1869 culminated in what is known as the
Black Friday panic, September 24, 1869. Fiske and Gould were conducting
a speculation in gold, and sought to corner it. They forced the price
up to a high figure, but the Government suddenly appeared as a seller
of gold and broke the “corner.”
The year 1873 witnessed another revulsion of confidence and another
disruption of the commercial and financial affairs of the country.
Business had long been unduly expanded, and the collapse finally
came. The failure, on September 18, of the honored firm of Jay Cooke
& Co., which had not only been identified with the building of the
Northern Pacific R. R. but had been a strong supporter of the credit
of the Government when it was in the direst distress, was the first
bad news. House after house fell. The Stock Exchange closed its doors
on September 20, and did not reopen them until September 30. More
than fifty Stock Exchange firms suspended, and several of the leading
banking institutions of New York and other cities had to stop business.
During this panic the New York Clearing-House Association issued
clearing-house certificates to those of its members who needed
available funds, and during the trouble issued $24,915,000 of them. In
May, 1884, it issued $24,915,000; in the 1890 panic, $16,645,000; in
1893, $41,490,000.
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.
There were men of noble and patriotic cast of mind, who devoted their
lives to the development of this lovely and wholly humane work. They
deserve to rank beside the heroes of our battlefields. Their victories
were those of peace, and were followed by an increase of the delightful
products of the orchard, vineyard, and garden.
Once that our forefathers were free from the bondage of European greed,
this art of peace kept pace with our civilization on other lines.
There is nothing in the whole list of our scientific attainments or
material industries that can show more substantial progress. Nor is
there a nation on earth that has so rich, varied, and adaptable soils,
together with climatic conditions so admirably and generally suited to
fruit culture; nor a people more alive to their opportunities in this
direction.
THE AGE OF PROGRESS.—During the generation of fruit growers who lived
from about 1830 until the time of the Civil War, the region lying
between the Alleghany Mountains and the Missouri River, and extending
from the Ottawa River in Canada to the mountains of Tennessee, which
is now the great apple bin of America, as well as its granary, was
being rapidly filled with energetic settlers. These pioneers carried
with them carefully selected seeds, cuttings, and trees of the best
varieties of fruits known in their Eastern and Southern homes. These
were planted in the rich, virgin soil of the new territory, which was
then known as “The West.” Under the happy influences of a congenial
climate and careful cultivation, they developed into fruitful orchards
and vineyards, yielding finer specimens, and, in some cases, larger
crops than had ever been known in the older parts of the country.
This gave a great impetus to the culture of fruits. The first large
commercial orchards of the apple, peach, and pear in the central United
States were then being planted in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.
The South had not yet awakened to a knowledge of her possibilities in
fruit culture. Under slave labor the land was almost solely given up to
cotton and tobacco. Florida had not then even dreamed of her wonderful
developments in orange culture. In Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas,
and the great Northwest, where now there are fruit plantations of
almost unparalleled extent, only the first trees and plants were being
set, and it was only thought _possible that some day_ fruits could be
produced in abundance there. The Rocky Mountain and Pacific States had
scarcely been heard of, even as Territories, and only an occasional
plantation of vines and trees around some mission station could be
found.
[Illustration: COCOANUT TREE, PALM BEACH, FLA.]
THE AGE OF TRIUMPH.—At the close of the Civil War, which had somewhat
distracted the attention of our people both North and South from the
progress of the peaceful arts, there was a great expansion of our
rural population. The love of travel had taken possession of many who
had been in the armies. They were no longer content with the narrow
boundaries and the poor lands of the old Eastern farms. They wanted new
fields for their energies. The building of the great railroad systems
across the continent solved the question of the settlement of the “Far
West,” and the mythical “American Desert” that was supposed to lie this
side of it. The prairies were covered with homesteaders’ shanties, sod
houses, and “dug-outs.” The forests of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Missouri, and Arkansas fell before the axe of the pioneer. The “Boys
in Blue” who had seen the natural advantages of the Southern States,
while there on the dread errand of war, began the rehabilitation of the
country they had helped to devastate. They took with them their Yankee
notions and Western vim, and planted many kinds of farm crops, trees,
vines, and berry bushes upon the old plantations where little else than
cotton and tobacco used to grow. Florida was veritably turned into a
garden of orange trees and truck patches. The chocolate hills and rich
black lands of Texas were planted to grapes, peaches, and berries. The
dry plains and mesas of the Rocky Mountain region, that were naturally
almost devoid of vegetation, were irrigated and made to produce the
most delightful fruits in abundance. The giant forests of Oregon and
Washington were invaded by the lumberman and the homeseeker, and in
their stead were planted trees which yielded the largest and best of
fruits. And California,—what shall we say of her wonderful valleys,
grassy foothills, and timbered mountain slopes? All of the fruits of
the temperate zones are growing there, and in some places the hardier
of the tropical kinds succeed. California is indeed a land of fruits.
Taking the whole of North America, except the frozen regions of the
British possessions, and Alaska, where few cultivated fruits can be
grown; and half-civilized Mexico, where progress is scarcely known;
the last thirty-five years have witnessed such advancements in fruit
culture as seem almost beyond belief. It has truly been an age of
triumph. Not only has the territory of its successful culture been
wonderfully extended, but the whole plan and science of fruit-growing
has been almost revolutionized. Old things have largely passed away.
New varieties, new methods of culture and new markets for the products
of the fruit farm have been found. Some of the old varieties have been
retained, but many new ones have been originated here; some by chance
and others by scientific breeding. Valuable kinds that had long been
lying in obscurity have been brought into public favor. Others have
been imported from foreign countries. Almost the entire world has been
ransacked in order to obtain fruits that might prove of value to us.