19 1 2] Rural Depopulation in Southern Ontario. 263 



increased from 1,095 to 1,758, while that of the latter — the inland town- 

 ship — has declined from 1,610 to 1,389. Everywhere then, we notice 

 that the influence of the increase of fruit-growing and market-gardening 

 has been to increase the rural population, while the inland townships 

 have shared the common depopulation of the ordinary Ontario agricul- 

 tural community. 



So far our illustrations have been drawn from a comparatively small 

 area. In order to show that the decline is not merely a local phenomenon, 

 we shall take cases from different parts of the Province. 



The township of Oro in Simcoe reached its maximum population, 

 4,566, in 1881 ; in 191 1 its population was only 3,485, a decline of 26 per 

 cent, in thirty years. 



The population of the township of Bosanquet in Lambton declined 

 from 4,425 in 1871 to 2,491 in 191 1, or forty-three per cent, in forty years. 



East Missouri in Oxford declined from 3,668 in 1871 to 2,623 in 1911 

 — a loss of twenty-eight per cent, in forty years. 



Otonabee in Peterborough declined from 4,261 in 1861 to 3,287 in 

 1911 — a decrease of twenty-two per cent, in fifty years. 



Osnabruck in Stormont declined from a maximum of 5,796 in 1881 

 to 4,170 in 1911 — twenty-eight per cent, in thirty years. 



Numerous other examples can be given, but the foregoing are 

 sufficient to establish our general conclusion — that the population of the 

 ordinary agricultural Ontario township to-day has declined from 20 to 

 45 per cent, from its maximum. This decline is, however, partially off- 

 set by the very considerable increase of late years in the population of 

 fruit-growing and market-gardening districts. This latter increase is 

 itself largely due to the rise of our cities, which provide a market for their 

 products. 



Present Density of Rural Population. 



It will now be worth our while to consider the present density of 

 rural population in order to see what is the complement of human labour 

 per square mile in the ordinary Ontario township. What is the average 

 number of people living and labouring on and maintained by the products 

 of the average square mile in an ordinary agricultural district? My 

 general conclusion on this point is that the Ontario agricultural township 

 averages about thirty persons to the square mile. This figure neces- 

 sarily includes the population of small unincorporated villages — probably 

 from one-fourth to one-third of the whole — so that only about twenty 

 to twenty-three persons actually reside in the average square mile of 

 agricultural land in a grain-growing and stock-raising township. 



This conclusion was reached by taking various agricultural com- 

 munities and dividing the aggregate population of the rural munici- 



