DECREASE OF AGRICULTURAL POPULATION. 433 



their respective States, we have an increase of fifty-nine per 

 cent, in the country, including all the smaller cities, villages 

 and towns. In some States this disproportion is even greater, 

 as in Massachusetts, where such a test would show that the 

 rural population has not increased at all, during two decades. 

 Even in the new States, the town population is greatly in ex 

 cess of the country, as is shown by the following statistics of 

 Ohio: Total State. population 1850, 1,980,329; 1870, 2,665,- 

 260. Urban population 1850, 400,000; 1870, 1,000,000. Agri 

 cultural population 1850, 1,580,329; 1870, 1,665,260. In 

 crease 84,931. This gives an increase of 5.4 per cent, in the 

 agricultural, against an increase of 150 per cent, of the urban 

 population. The cause of this most undesirable state of thiogs 

 is due to a- low estimate of the farmer s pursuit, and the absence 

 of the facilities afforded for social enjoyments in compact 

 neighborhoods. Human beings degenerate in proportion to 

 their isolation; for man is preeminently a social animal, and 

 he rises in the scale by the addition of other experiences to 

 his own. The growth of his intellect and affections require the 

 presence of various objects upon which they may be exercised. 

 We often hear it remarked that any man can be a farmer; that 

 bone and muscle are the only requisites for success in that call 

 ing. The well-bred girl turns away from the manly farmer s 

 boy, and encourages the city snob, often against the dictates 

 of her better judgment, because she thinks there is no place on 

 the farm for refinements or sociability, or intellectual pleasures. 

 It is these notions of farming which have made that ogre of 

 the farmers, the middle-man. He is usually a spoiled farmer, 

 whose wife was discontented on account of hard work and 

 social privations, and who had found country life, as Gail Ham 

 ilton expresses it, &quot;one uninterrupted flat.&quot; Gen. Francis A. 

 Walker, Superintendent of the United States Census, the most 

 reliable and unprejudiced of witnesses, tells us that there has 

 been in the last decade a marked falling off in the number of 

 common laborers, and an increase of forty per cent, of the trad 

 ing class. While the demand for farm labor exceeds the supply, 

 the farmers are maintaining a body of persons not less nu 

 merous than the standing army of the British empire, and with 

 a far greater number of dependents in the way of wives and 

 children than are charged to the officers and soldiers of that 

 army, all in excess of the legitimate demands of trade. ; The 

 farmer claims^hat the middle-man carries off all his profits, and 



