THE POPULATION OF COLORADO 213 
ployment in the state, and although these were not all miners a con- 
siderable proportion of them was.* 
The Cripple Creek strikes which were made during this decade again 
increased the number of men in the mining industry. The energy 
formerly devoted to silver mining now turned its attention to the extrac- 
tion of the yellow metal and the census of 1900 shows almost as many 
engaged in the mining industry as the census of 1880. In that year there 
were 28,970 while in rg00 the number was 28,347. 
It might seem at first thought that a larger number would have gone 
into mining after the Cripple Creek strikes, especially since the popula- 
tion of the state had so greatly increased. However, thisis explained by 
the changes that had taken place in the character of the industry. The 
early miners were men with small capital, working placers and generally 
such workings as could be carried on without the necessity of sinking 
deep shafts, blasting tunnels, and employing expensive engines and 
hoisting machinery. But the strikes in Cripple Creek were not of the 
nature to appeal to this class of miners. The mines there required 
expensive machinery and large capital. More scientific methods of 
treatment had been discovered. In short, the industry had become in 
considerable degree amenable to exact science, and such elements of 
risk as still remained were in the hands of men capable of playing for 
large stakes. Hence the impecunious adventurer did not enter the field. 
It is true that machine methods have somewhat reduced the manual labor 
in mining, though it will probably always be necessary to depend to a 
great extent on such labor at the initial stages of ore extraction. But 
mechanical drilling has proved a successful substitute for handwork to a 
considerable extent. 
AGRICULTURE 
MALES ENGAGED IN AGRICULTURE IN COoLORADO* 
ey ee ee es 
1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 
195 6,462 13,462 36,134 43,145 
Percentage of Increase........-. 520720 108.3 168 .4 19.4 
* Census, 1900, “Agriculture,” Pt. I, p. Ixxix. 
: Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, Colorado, September, 18093- 
