CHANGKS IN FOREST AREA IN NEW ENGLAND 443 



entered into the situation and gave the New England forests a new 

 lease of life. By that time the North Atlantic States were connected 

 with the country west of the AUeghanies, where the land is compara- 

 tively level and free from stones and the soil generally very fertile, by 

 the Erie Canal and several lines of railway ; and as the means of inter- 

 state transportation became more numerous and efificient, it gradually 

 became more economical to raise the staple crops in the Mississippi 

 Valley, instead of on the rocky hillsides of New England, and ship them 

 around and across the mountains in exchange for manufactured arti- 

 cles. New England had been endowed by Nature with abundant water- 

 power, which is lacking in large areas in the interior of the continent,- 

 and the development of transportation facilities enabled each section 

 to specialize more and more in the industry for which it was best fitted. 

 This change of economic conditions caused many of the New Eng- 

 land farmers to migrate westward to continue their occupation under 

 more favorable circumstances.^ while many others, or at least their 

 children, moved to the towns and cities to work in the factories ; and 

 while new factories were springing up in southern New England, the 

 forests of Ohio,'* Indiana, and neighboring States were being cleared 

 away at a fearful rate. The increase in New England population in 

 recent decades, though very large in some of the states (Massachusetts, 

 Rhode Island, and Connecticut having gained nearly 3 per cent a year 

 for the last 60 years), has been almost entirely in the cities and factory 

 towns, and the rural population has declined." 



^ In 1909 over 40 per cent of the water-power used in manufacturing- in the 

 United States was located in New England, and over 25 per cent of the total 

 power used in New England (as compared with less than 7 per cent in the rest 

 of the country) was generated by water. At earlier census periods the relative 

 importance of water-power was still greater, but even now the Merrimac River 

 is believed to be turning more spindles than any other river in the world. 



Generally speaking, the richest st)ils of the United States are in regions with 

 little or no water-power, where the streams are sluggish and muddy, as in Illinois 

 and the great valley of California, or scarce, as in Nevada and the high ham- 

 mock regions of Florida; and similar correlations seem to hold in some other 

 parts of the world. 



' In 1870 there were 568,707 natives of New England living in other parts of 

 the United States, and the number has changed little since ; so that the total 

 emigration must have been well over a million. 



*The wooded area of Ohio decreased from over 50 per cent in 1850 to about 

 20 per cent in 1880, and cannot be over 15 per cent at the present time. The ex- 

 tinction of the passenger pigeon was probably due very largely to the destruction 

 of the hardwood forests of the Mississippi Valley, in which its vast flocks used 

 to rest during their migrations. 



° The census statistics of rural and urban population are not very satisfactory 

 for New England, where the township is the unit of enumeration, but the statis- 

 tics of occupation show the same tendency very well. The percentages of the 



