224 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT. 



Or an aggregate area of 630,917 square miles and an 

 aggregate population of 598,147, while in the year 1860 

 they had a population of only 250,000 persons. Accord- 

 ing to this the population has increased 350,000 persons 

 within a period of ten years, but this increase belongs 

 for the most part to the State of Minnesota only, since 

 the population of that State has grown from 172,000 to 

 435,500 during the period in question an increase of 

 263,000 persons. There is hardly any room for doubt 

 that 600,000 people, scattered over an area of 30,000 

 German square miles, even if all are taken as con- 

 tributing to the success of the Northern Pacific Rail- 

 way, will not be able to insure a traffic that will produce 

 an annual income of $20,000,000. 



" 18. The enthusiastic adherents of the undertakers 

 of the Northern Pacific Railway will not deny the truth 

 of this assertion, and they are only able to hold out 

 hopes for the future by pointing to a possible rapid 

 increase of population in the adjacent districts conse- 

 quent upon the completion of the line, and a correspond- 

 ing increase of the income of the company. Willing 

 as I am to acknowledge, respecting America, the well 

 approved fact that, contrary to what we see in Germany, 

 where railways are the product of already cultivated 

 and well-populated regions, the railways in America 

 have hitherto drawn culture and population after them 

 into uncultivated regions, and thereby drawn an income 

 to themselves, yet the deductions from these facts must 

 always be made with a certain reserve. We must not 

 forget that though a growth of the population in regions 

 newly traversed by railways is certain, it is not suf- 

 ficiently rapid to cover thinly inhabited regions within 

 a few years with numerous and densely peopled settle- 



