Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/183

Rh was greater than for 1870-1880. There is a distinct recovery in the rate of increase in population.

The statistics given of the north central and New England states show that, taken as a whole, the rural sections are not being depopulated, but arc increasing in population at a gradually accelerated rate; townships and villages located near large cities, as a rule, show the greatest gain in population; better methods of transportation and communication and improved social conditions actually do tend to stop the depopulation of the rural districts. The reasons which may be given for this increased rate of growth in the population of the rural and suburban districts are many. They may be conveniently classified as follows: First, recent changes and improvements in industrial methods and conditions; second, the improvement in the home and social life of rural communities, due to better methods of transportation and communication.

At present there is a marked tendency for manufacturing plants to locate in the suburbs or the outskirts of a city. It seems probable that this tendency is to continue and that our manufacturing establishments are in the future to be located farther from the crowded portions of a large city or in a small city or town. The value of land is lower and rents are lower than in the densely populated portions of the city. Better shipping facilities can usually be obtained; switches can be built into the plant itself with little expense. The old two-, three-, or more story shop is being supplanted by the one-story steel structure; methods of construction have undergone a radical change in recent years. The new style building is better lighted, heated and ventilated than the old; it also requires more floor space and provides for traveling cranes to carry heavy parts of machinery. Coincident with this change in shop construction has come a change in the methods of transmitting power. Shafting and belting are being replaced in many new shops by compressed air and electricity. The use of compressed air and electricity allows the machines to be spaced much farther apart, as power can be economically transmitted over a much greater distance than in the case where shafts and belts are used. Long distance transmission of electrical power and the utilization of water power will aid in scattering manufacturing establishments in localities outside the large cities—witness the rapid growth of industrial settlements near Niagara Falls and the Sault Sainte Marie. Water power is destined to play a continually increasing part in industrial operations; but if we are able to transmit power economically to considerable distances, there will be no necessity for a close concentration of manufacturing plants in the vicinity of any water-fall. No claim is made that such a change involves a return to smaller units or to a greater number of small proprietors. It. taken in connection with the preceding, does, however,