436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



That of 345 towns in Massachusetts, from 1845 to 1855, there was a 

 decrease of population in 86 towns ; that from 1855 to 1865 there was 

 a loss in 166 towns ; from 1865 to 1875 there was a loss in 142 towns, 

 and the census of 1880 reports a loss in 143 towns. 



It will be seen that the number of towns losing population varies 

 at each census, but undoubtedly the same towns are reported as de- 

 creasing in numbers each decade. It should be stated that, in about 

 one quarter of those towns, the loss was occasioned by a division of 

 the town or annexing a part of it to some other place. It should also 

 be stated that the removals from the country districts to villages and 

 cities do not account for all these losses of population ; emigration to 

 the West, and to other distant places, does a part of the work, and so 

 also does death. 



There is another item in the account : the birth-rate has so much 

 declined in rural districts, that scarcely any addition, if any, comes 

 from natural increase. But, as the death-rate in many places exceeded 

 the birth-rate, the thinning out of the peojile is not confined to Massa- 

 chusetts. 



In Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, the hill towns and many 

 of the agricultural districts are losing more or less population not 

 alone by death or emigration of young people, but by the removal of 

 whole families to more populous places. In Rhode Island and Con- 

 necticut there is not the same extent of territory, and population is 

 more equally distributed ; but still the census of Connecticut reports 

 a decrease of population in some sixty towns in the western part of 

 the State. Statistics show that this removal of j)eople from the coun- 

 try to the city has been increasing every year ; and when it will cease, 

 or what is to be the result, time only can tell. 



Agriculture as related to other Pursuits. Connected with 

 this decrease of population in country districts, there is one very impor- 

 tant consideration, that it involves a change of occupation. Farming is 

 given up for work in the store, the shop, and the mill. Within half 

 a century the business of New England has passed through great 

 changes. 



By the censuses of 1860, 1870, and 1880, we find, instead of an in- 

 creased number engaged in agriculture with the increase of popula- 

 tion, that the number has been actually diminishing. The census 

 divides all kinds of business or occupation into four classes : 1. Agri- 

 culture ; 2. Professional and personal service ; 3. Trades and trans- 

 portation ; and, 4. Manufactures and mechanics. An examination of 

 the tables representing these four classes in the reports of 1870 and 

 1880 shows that the last three classes have increased relatively far 

 more than the first class. 



The number engaged in agriculture has fallen off in every State. 

 Vermont and Massachusetts stand in respect to agriculture at extreme 

 points ; the former has more people engaged in farming than in all 



