"I'm glad we're celebrating Princess Luna's return to the throne with a new silver bit," said Princess Twilight Sparkle, trotting alongside her mentor. "I just don't understand why it took so long. And why are we going into the palace instead of the Royal Mint?"
"I didn't want to spoil the surprise while you're in public," said Celestia. "I know how you get when discovering new things."
"I do not!" protested Twilight, then immediately backpedaled. "I mean if you think it's appropriate for us to view the proofs in private before the official ceremony at the Mint, I'm not going to argue, because you know best about these things. Not that I over-react to discovering that entire sections of the world that I thought ran in some rational fashion are actually completely wacked. I mean different."
"I'm just glad to have some help with the national treasury again," admitted Celestia. "All of those golden bits across the nation and no real way to make change. I was afraid Luna would want her silver to be ten-bit coins, but she surprised me. Quarter-bits do make far more sense, and her Moon is far more productive, since it is closer."
"Moon?" Twilight's steps faltered, then she ran to catch up as Celestia made a turn into the Royal Gardens. "She mines the moon for silver?"
"Not exactly. We're almost there, and you will understand far better with some visual aids."
"Oh, of course." Twilight smiled at the thought of pie charts and bar graphs, with explanations written in large letters. Nothing was more relaxing than a long presentation on fiscal policy, and she fairly danced on her hooves as Celestia made several more turns through the garden, headed to a section Twilight had never seen before.
And as they came out from an opening in the path to see rows and rows of trees organized into a neat orchard, she realized exactly why.
"It took quite a bit of cross-breeding and alicorn magic," continued Celestia as she walked, with Twilight stumbling along behind out of pure inertia. "The original seeds from before Luna's banishment were no longer any good, so we had to cross-pollinate my trees with several wild varieties until we came up with a suitable cultivar. I had originally thought about doing much the same when you became an alicorn princess, but you were in Ponyville, and I really couldn't think of what a friendship coin would be valued at, so I put it off until later."
Celestia nodded at where Princess Luna was using a brush to gently dust the glittering silver blossoms of one of the smaller trees, most likely performing the pollination task that Twilight could not get her mind wrapped around.
"In any event, we finally used some of Princess Cadence's root stock from the Crystal Empire to get the quantity up, and they've been producing long enough for us to introduce them into the economy." Celestia tapped one hoof against the silvery trunk of a nearby tree, caught the glittering silver quarter-bit that fell out of the foliage, and presented it for Twilight's examination. "The Mint will have to polish off the stem marks and weigh them to ensure uniformity, but I have to admit, they're just as perfect as the bits Equestria's been using for a thousand years."
"Urk!" managed Twilight Sparkle as her eyes darted from the silvery orchard they were standing next to, over to the towering golden trees nearby, and back again, over and over.
I blame Admiral Biscuit's Buy One - Plant One story about earth pony magic and HP printer cartridges. You know, I always wondered where they came from...
And it was then that Twilight learned that yes, money does grow on trees, and it has always been that way too.
Yeeaahhh I really get Twilights reaction to things not functioning in a sane manner now. Nice story.
Well, at least they don't have to worry about inflation. Not unless somepony overfertilizes.
Ah, so the princesses aren't made of money, their trees are.
Dang, in all seriousness, that's probably something that the princesses will probably want to keep mum about and not let word of get around. Imagine if any ol' pony got a hold of one of these trees--they could go from poor to rich relatively quickly, which might seem like a good thing, except since that they can always just grow more money, I fear that'd leave them in an excellent position to start spending that money irresponsibility and make a real mess of things.
On the upside though...Discord would probably love such a scenario.
10177547
Or they can take the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy solution used on ancient Earth, and burn down the orchard...
This does seem to explain why the economy goes haywire when there's a drought.
This is the Twilightiest sentence ever.
10177812
To be fair, most economies go haywire when there’s a drought.
Just wait until Twilight sees the Royal Mint Mint...
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Yeah. I was half-surprised that money grew on trees rather than as an herb.
And thus it was revealed that a magic money tree IS required for a properly functioning economy......
The mystery is, everyone knows this - so why are we still surprised?
10177640
That, that's how you get galloping inflation.
Flood the market with coinage.
I guess Discord might enjoy the chaos of the crash, but probably not the aftermath.
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I want to upvote the first part part of your comment and downvote the second part. But I have to choose one! I just choose not to choose.
10177640
This is nothing, really. It's a practical problem, with practical solutions.
The lightbulb thing is so unimaginably worse.
10177547
But you just know every year there's the same long-winded argument about the neighbor's kids picking from that one long branch growing across the fence.
Silver and gold growing on ancient trees... My god... EQUESTRIA IS NARNIA!!
I guess it got better after The Last Battle... because ponies.
10178356 Alondro hides his money tree in his garage...
Money does grow on trees! Aaaahahahaha!!
FFS, Twilight. You're besties with a mare who farms rocks. Now embrace that sweet sweet super earth pony powah. It's metal!
10179115
Nope. The Founders of Hogwarts were Edward, Slytherin; Peter, Gryffindor; Lucy, Hufflepuff; Susan, Ravenclaw.
The ponies just bought all the trees and took them home, that why wizards don’t have them
The old saying was thought to be "Money DOESN'T just grow on trees!"
Only for everypony to realize that they heard it wrong the first time.....
"Money doesn't JUST grow on trees!"
"It can grow on bushes too. But they don't produce the same yield so we discontinued their use!"
For a moment I thought the Sun and the Moon were growing on trees, and I was preparing to make a Silmarillion comment…
It is Faust-canon that Celestia has a golden apple tree, so this makes a surprising amount of horse sense.