Untitled - Clpdigital.org

16 STATISTICS OF THE AMERICAN IKON TRADE FOR 1894.
to 184 in the number of furnaces in blast and an increase in
weekly capacity to 168,762 tons. On December 31st there were
185 furnaces in blast. On February 1st, 1895, the number of
furnaces reported in blast was 179, with less capacity than on
December 31st, and since February 1st the number and capacity
of furnaces in blast have further declined. Although the large
production of pig iron in the closing months of 189-1 and in
January, 1895, had gone into consumption, the production of finished
products keeping pace with that of pig iron, it was found
that the same rate of consumption could not be maintained.
Vet it is remarkable that the blast furnaces of the country
and its rolling mills and steel works and foundries should have
so rapidly resumed almost their normal activity after they had
exj>ei'ieneed the blasting effects of the panic of 1893 and had
shared the unparalleled depression which had continued from the
early part of 1893 to August, 1894.
But, while there was a marked revival in the activity of the
iron and steel works of the country alter the pass-age ol' the
Senate tariff bill by the House of Representatives on the 13th
of August, and while a similar revival in activity has since been
observable in many other leading branches of productive industrv.
there was not up to the month of March of the present year
any marked increase in the prices of any manufactured or other
products. On the contrary, the prices of nearly all iron and
steel products fell from July 1, 1894, to January 1, 1895, after
which latter date and until March the prices of iron and steel
either remained stationary or only nominally advanced. Late iu
March there was an advance of 35 cents per ton in the price of
furnace coke, to take effect on April 1st, and a slight advance in
the prices of Lake Superior iron ore was announced. An advance
in the prices of Bessemer pig iron and billets at once followed.
Other products have since slightly advanced.
In (he latter half of 1894 cotton touched the lowest price
known during the present generation, and so also did wheat, altiiu:i:_'h
ill 1N!>1 "Lie 'nf tile M'Wi.-t iliollgllt. ever kliMvn in this
country had seriously reduced both the wheat and corn crops
of the West. In November cotton sold at New Orleans at 5
cents per pound, and in July aud October wheat sold at New
York at 541 cents per bushel. Thus far in 1895 there has been
a sharp recovery in the prices of both cotton and wheat and in
the prices of some other agricultural products, but all these prices
are still lower than they were before the panic of 1893.