RURAL POPULATION 



21 



Farmers' sons left home to seek employment in the new 

 enterprises. 



But even the invention of machinery to work up and re- 

 fine the raw materials of the farm cheaply and rapidly 

 would not allow men to leave the countryside unless some 

 ways were devised for each farmer to produce more food 

 than before. Otherwise, these new city laborers would 

 have nothing to live upon. McCormick and others met 

 this difficulty. The reaper of McCormick made it possible 



TYPE OF BARN A CENTURY OLD. 



for one farmer to produce more grain than four or five 

 formerly. In 1845 the farmers produced 4.33 bushels of 

 wheat to every inhabitant of the United States. In 1889, 

 though the farming districts at this time had lost in popu- 

 lation relatively, the farmers produced 10 bushels of wheat 

 to every inhabitant. Machinery, then, in city and in 

 country, is the first important force affecting the growth 

 of rural population. 



b. The second group of causes for the relative decline 

 in rural population is found in certain peculiarities of 



