94 



PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



Europe, which continued during the years of the war with only 

 a slight reduction. During the decade from 1860 to 1870 there 

 were 2,314,824 immigrants, most of whom settled in the group 

 of states known as the north central states, that is, the states 

 north of the Ohio, west of New York, and east of the Missouri. 

 This is the group sometimes called the grain states, and its 

 population increased more than 42 per cent during this decade. 

 Expansion of farm area. During the next decade, however, 

 that is, from 1870 to 1880, over 297,000 square miles, a terri- 

 tory equal in extent to Great Britain and France combined, 

 were added to the cultivated area of the United States. 1 This 

 increase in the cultivated area was due partly to the increased 

 effectiveness of labor when it was equipped with the improved 

 machinery which had come into use, partly to the westward migra- 

 tion of our native population, and partly to the enormous immi- 

 gration of that decade. This immigration amounted to nearly 

 3,000,000 persons, a number not far short of the population 

 of the entire country at the beginning of the War of Independ- 

 ence. But the immigration was still greater during the succeed- 

 ing decade, that is, from 1880 to 1890, reaching the astonishing 

 number of 5,250,000. Many of these immigrants continued, up 

 to 1 890, to find their way to the Western farms. The following 

 figures from the United States census will show the increase in 

 the principal grain crops since the census of 1 840 : 



1 Bogart, op. cit, p. 267. 



