Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1877 — Blue Times in California. [ARTICLE]

Blue Times in California.

SxvFirrv BgVKM is destined to be a bine year in the annals of California. There can be no question that its wheat crop will be Seriously deficient. The estimate, in brief, te one quarter of a crop In Southern California, half a crop In Middle California, and a full average crop in North ern California. Taking the State as h whole, the deficiency is put down at half the usual crep. which b, usually, 20,0X1,000 bushels. So here is a void of 10,000,000 busheb in the resources of 1877. At fl per bushel, which Is the average price in the country, the debt-paying power of 1.000,000 people is reduced $10,000,000. But this b not the only misfortune of the year; the barley crop, which b really the oat crop of California, is biastea ? and ou the 18th of April the farmers were cutting it, in the Sacramehto Valley, to be fed in the sheaf to horses. The cause *of this crop deficiency was the scantiness of the winter rains. Ordinarily the rain-fall is thirty-four inches; this year it was only fourteen inches. In addition to the crop deficit, the mining resources, or rather results, are unexpectedly and suddenly foiling off. The Bonanza Mines of Nevada, known as the California and Virginia Consolidated, are producing so lightly that the latter has ceased to makedividends. This, of course, creates, a feverish excitement on the Stock Exchange, and the shares have declined 70 per cent, during the past year. California has declined in nearly the sqme proportion. So large a decline in these leading corporations nas shaken the whole Ibt of twenty or more quotable companies. The losses are absolutely appalling, and fall severely on thousands pf all classes—as, some time or another, almost every one takes a venture in the mining shares. I estimate that the losses by this decline during the past eighteen months cannot be less than f 100,000,000. The nominal capital of the vanous companies in California and Nevada is at least $200,000,000. San Francisco Cor. Mil. Wisconsin.