Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/163

 "It may be stated that there was a slight tendency for the improvement of land to increase concomitantly with the increase in population; but the topography of the country and other elements entered in to such an extent as to nearly destroy this parallel growth. The improvement of land is much more stable and less likely to sudden and great changes than is the population. For this reason we would not expect to find as large a per cent of improved land in proportion to the population in Section C as we would find in Section B, nor as large a per cent in Section B as in Section A; because Section A is the oldest in settlement, and Section C the youngest. The per cent of improved land as a whole in the three sections supports this conclusion. But in comparing the various classes of each section with each other, however, we do not always find the greater per cent of improved land in the region of the most concentrated population. In Section A, in 1820 and 1825, a larger per cent of land was improved in Class II than in Class I, while the population in Class I was much greater than in Class II. In Section B in