This branch at least was not unloaded on the main line by interested parties, and forms an essential part of the system to-day. Other branches were bought or constructed at the time, but do not require detailed mention. Gould for the time had obtained from the Union Pacific all that he thought possible, and quietly unloaded his stock, while keeping up the payment of dividends. By 1883 he was substantially clear, but he had left his mark; the consolidation of 1880, with the forced purchase of worthless branches, aided as it was by the high capitalization caused by extravagant original construction, and accompanied by a steadily increasing intensity of competition between transcontinental lines, had diminished the surplus to a dangerous extent. At the same time the prosperity of the country as a whole was declining; the wheat crop of 1881 was only three-quarters as large as the crop of 1880, and the corn crop was the smallest since 1874; though the decline was not so marked in Kansas and the far West as in the states east and south of Omaha and Kansas. By 1882, says Noyes, all the markets were moving downward, and after the reaction of that year, the volume of internal trade decreased continuously until after the panic of 1884.[486] The evidence of distress on the part of the Union Pacific was the mounting up of the floating debt. In November, 1882, President Dillon stated that it then amounted to $3,400,000, and that a loan of $5,000,000 was to be negotiated to take care of it.[487] The annual report at the end of the year stated the net debt to be only $842,743, but included in the assets used to offset the gross debt $2,768,437 in fuel and material on hand, and $927,648 in balances due from auxiliary roads; so that early the following year it was again a subject of discussion, and the stockholders recommended to the directors the issue of collateral bonds in order to wipe it out. Pursuant to the recommendation the directors executed to the New England Trust Company of Boston an indenture under which it proposed to issue trust bonds to an amount equal to 90 per cent of the securities deposited. By 1884 the gross floating debt amounted, nevertheless, to $11,306,595, as against $9,852,325 gross in 1882, and the quick assets, exclusive of fuel and material, counted up to $8,068,898, instead of to $6,241,145. The chief increase in liabilities, as always, had taken place in bills payable, meaning that the road had been giving its notes for the payment of current indebtedness, with the consequent necessity of paying a high rate of interest, and of making frequent renewals. Meanwhile dividends had been stopped and salaries cut down.