226 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



ments of a commercially agricultural or industrial char- 

 acter, particularly when it is a question of filling a 

 region of 2000 miles with such settlements. 



GROWTH OF POPULATION. 



" We learn, by way of example, from a comparison of 

 the population of the United States in 1870 and 1860, 

 that in that decennial period the population increased 

 from 31,500,000 to 38,500,000, an increase of 7,000,000, 

 very considerable in itself, but not of very great im- 

 portance compared with the proportional increase of 

 railways, when we bear in mind that the railways in 

 the United States increased during the same period 

 from 31,286 miles to 53,400 miles. Even the most favor- 

 able rate of increase of the population during the last ten 

 years, namely, that of Minnesota, or about 150 per 

 cent., would, extended over the whole region of the 

 Northern Pacific Railway, during another ten years, 

 only result in an aggregate population of 1,500,000, or 

 one-third of the present population of the State of New- 

 York. That such a population which, by the way, 

 would not exist at the time of the completion of the 

 line, nor till ten years afterward will not yield 

 the required income to pay out of the net profits the 

 interest on the capital invested in the enterprise, I 

 think I am, according to my conviction, bound to 

 maintain. 



" Of course an increase of population beyond the per- 

 centage mentioned is possible, in consequence of accele- 

 rated exertions and efforts to direct immigration toward 

 the hitherto neglected States of Dakota, Idaho, and 

 Oregon and Washington Territory; but we must not 



