Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 78.djvu/420

410 1790 nearly four children under 16 for each three adults, in 1840 an equal number of children and adults, in 1900 more than three adults for each two children. If the proportion of children in 1790 had been maintained there would be at present in this country about twenty-five million children who are unborn.

Next in significance to the declining birth rate and the lack of children and related to them is the decreasing rural population and the increasing urban population. This change is shown in the curve; the percentage of the population living in cities and towns with a population of over 8,000 has increased from 3.3 per cent, in 1890 to 32.9 per cent, in 1900. In 1790 there were six places having a population as large as 8,000; in 1900 there were 545 such places.

The increase in population of the several states from 1900 to 1910 is shown on the map. The percentage of increase is clearly greatest in the west, the population having more than doubled in Washington, Oklahoma and Idaho, and having increased more than

60 per cent, in California and Oregon. In the east Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have about maintained the average increase, while New York has exceeded it with a gain of 25.4 per cent. Although the details have not been announced it is clear that the states having relatively the largest rural population have increased most slowly. The three rural New England states show a gain of about five per cent. But the most striking fact is the stationary condition of the great agricultural states of the middle west. Iowa has actually a smaller population in 1910 than in 1900; the increase in Indiana is 7.3 per cent., in Missouri 6, in Kentucky 6.6, and these small increases are due to the cities.

The relative increase in the population of the country during the last decade was smaller than ever before ana this increase was due mainly to the settling of the west and to the foreign immigration to eastern cities. The depopulation of the country districts and the lack of children are ominous for the future.