Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/31

Rh to demand it, is also true. But it was a benefit to the country at large that a motive existed for annual exploring expeditions, each one of which brought into notice some new and favorable situations for settlements, besides promoting discoveries of its mineral resources of importance to its future development.

On account of the unusual and late rains in the summer of 1847, the large immigration which greatly increased the home consumption, and the Cayuse war which reduced the number of producers, the colony experienced a depression in business and a rise in prices which was the nearest approach to financial distress which the country had yet suffered. Farming utensils were scarce and dear, cast-iron ploughs selling at forty-five dollars. Other tools were equally scarce, often requiring a man who needed an axe to travel a long distance to procure one second-hand at a high price. This scarcity led to the manufacture of axes at Vancouver, for the company's own hunters and trappers, before spoken of as exciting the suspicion of the Americans. Nails brought from twenty to twenty-five cents per pound; iron twelve and a half. Groceries were high, coffee bringing fifty cents a pound; tea a dollar and a half; coarse Sandwich Island sugar twelve and fifteen cents; common molasses fifty cents a gallon. Coarse cottons brought twenty and twenty-five cents a yard; four-point blankets five dollars a single one; but ready-made common clothing for men could be bought cheap. Flour was selling in the spring for four and five dollars a barrel, and potatoes at fifty cents a bushel;