PHYSICAL AND CLIMATIC SETTING 



37 



PHYSIOGRAPHY AND INDUSTRY (See FigS. 4-9) 



The distribution of the population of the State is 

 an unconscious conformity to these natural forces. 



The great cities have grown up at the gateways 

 where are the big exchanges, transfer, trade and in- 

 dustry, at New York and Buffalo. In the valleys or 



Fig. 4. Graphs showing by decades the total area in farms, 

 the improved area in farms and the number of farms in 

 New York. 



on the plains at the more productive centers are the 

 intermediate cities, as Albany, Utica, Watertown, 

 Syracuse and Eochester. A little further out in the 

 side valleys that are not main lines of travel is the 

 second class city of Binghamton, and a number of 

 third class cities such as Elmira, Ogdensburg, Platts- 

 burg, Auburn, Ithaca, Cortland and Geneva; and 

 finally there are the intermediate small towns and 

 villages that set in the side valleys and a little back 

 on the slopes gathered about first by a narrow ring 

 of active farming region catering chiefly to the local 



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