Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/834

 8 14 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

show that from 1790 to 1890 the population of the United States in cities of 8,000 or more has risen from one thirty-third to nearly one-third of the whole. The census report for 1900 shows no break. It points out the startling fact that in 1900 there were 5.4 per cent, fewer people in the country than ten years before; and that of the 13,000,000 people added to our population during the decade 73.8 per cent, found homes in urban centers, and only 26.2 per cent, in the rural districts.

The percentage of loss would be much larger, moreover, if the migration to the city were not accompanied by an immigra- tion to the country a movement which checks the depletion, but which is often as injurious, because it exchanges the native for foreign stock. Consequently, while the New Englander abandons his unremunerative acres 'and flees to the city, the farmer of the central West rents his isolated farm to the foreign immigrant and moves to town. This tends to the formation of a distinctly peasant class such as is found in Bavaria. It is said that there are several communities in the United States where the English language is never heard.

Such is the situation in the rural communities of the United States today. District after district is being drained to the cities, leaving isolated pools of human beings to grow more stagnant, dank, and noisome. The richest of agricultural states seem to be unable to stem the flood. " For twenty-five years past," said Professor Cooley at the last Michigan Farmers' Insti- tute, "the population in settled rural districts of the northern states has been diminishing. According to the census of 1890, 66 per cent, of area in Illinois diminished, 43 in Iowa, 61 in Ohio, 83 in New York." The fruit of this growing isolation is keenly apparent.

The economic loss is great. Property depreciates in value. Farms are even abandoned. In New Hampshire 1,443 farms with tenantable buildings were at one time deserted. In the last decade the rural population of Vermont decreased 214.8 per cent. As a result, many acres are for sale for one dollar an acre, and scores of farms can be bought for one-fourth what they cost twenty-five years ago. But this depreciation is not