18 



THE PEOPLE OF TIIK 



PLOWING WITH OXEN. 

 Methods of I860. 



When we became a 

 nation, a rapid city 

 growth was just begin- 

 ning. 1 Ever since then 

 that growth has been 

 more rapid than the 

 country growth. The 

 rate of country growth, 

 indeed, has decreased 

 steadily from the first, 

 and is now only a third of 

 the rate of city growth. 

 All these figures, it must be remembered, are for the 



nation as a whole. For some districts the facts are quite 



different. Thus, accord- 

 ing to the last census 



rural Vermont showed 



a loss of 4.2 per cent ; 



Ohio, 1.3 per cent ; 



Indiana, 6.5 per cent; 



and Iowa, 7.2 per cent. 



The rural districts of 



the south Atlantic states, 



on the other hand, have 



been growing for the 



last century about as rapidly as have their cities, while, in 



industrial parts of the United States (New England, for 



SOWING WITH TRACTOR AND DRILL. 

 Methods of 1916. 



earlier censuses the per cent of rural population at the last decennial census 

 would be 61.2 per cent of the total population instead of but 53.7 per cent, as 

 given in the table. 



1 In 1700 there were only 6 cities of the United States having a population 

 of 8000 or more; in 1910 there were 778. In 1790, New York, the largest 

 city, had a population of 49,401. The figures for 1910 show that the number 

 of residents of New York City increased nearly one hundred fold since 

 1790, and that there are 101 cities of the United States having a population 

 greater than New York City had in 1790. 



