THE DECREASE OF RURAL POPULATION. 629 



another area of counties with decreasing rural population begins 

 and extends down over Berks and Chester Counties, Pennsylva- 

 nia, Salem County, New Jersey, the two northernmost of the three 

 Delaware counties, and the three most northerly of the counties 

 of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, comprising in all eight counties 

 and some four thousand square miles of territory. This southern 

 extension of the region of decrease last mentioned, both in Penn- 

 sylvania and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, very nearly ap- 

 proaches the northern prolongations of still another district in 

 which the rural population was less in 1890 than in 1880. The 

 principal portion of this district lies in Virginia, in which State 

 it comprises forty-five counties. On the south it extends into 

 one of the border counties of North Carolina, and on the north 

 stretches over southern and western Maryland up into central 

 Pennsylvania. It has an area of 24,092 square miles, divided among 

 sixty counties, of which Henrico County, Virginia, containing the 

 city of Richmond, is the only one which has not less rural popu- 

 lation than it had ten years ago. In Virginia, with two excep- 

 tions, all the decreasing counties lie east of the summits of the 

 Blue Ridge range, and these decreasing counties include nearly 

 the entire Piedmont and midland section of the State. Some — but 

 by no means" all — of the tide- water counties lying on or near the 

 Chesapeake Bay, owing probably to the growth of the oyster and 

 trucking industries, have gained population. The rate of decrease 

 in this group of decreasing counties has been somewhat less than 

 in most of the others. The rural population in 1880 and 1890 of 

 the area referred to compares as follows : 



1880 949,679 



1890 902,413 



Decrease 47,266 



Percentage of decrease 498 



The last two groups are apparently detached extensions of the 

 eastern arm of the great northeastern decreasing district. The 

 western arm of this district has a general southwest and northeast 

 direction, roughly parallel to the trend of the Appalachian sys- 

 tem and to the west of it. As before stated, a western offshoot or 

 projection from this arm crosses the entire State of Indiana, and 

 comes within five miles or less of connecting it with the great 

 area of decreasing counties which has the Mississippi River for its 

 center. In northwestern Ohio and northern central Indiana there 

 is a tract in which the population outside of the cities, towns, and 

 villages has increased during the last ten years. Many if not 

 most of these counties lie in the region in which natural gas has 

 been so extensively made available during the last ten years ; but 

 whatever be the cause, the rural or extra-urban population of this 



