The situation in Knox County is just the opposite. Knox County is projected to lose over two thousand people through migration and an additional three hundred persons through natural decline. Projection Scenario Z is a useful benchmark series because it shows the effects of fertility and mortality in the absence of migration. Pulaski County, for example, home of the Fort Leonard Wood military post, has a youthful age profile. Its relatively lower mortality and higher fertility rates would produce 38 percent growth between 1990 and 2020 under this scenario.
Hickory County is an opposite example.
A rural growth county in the Ozarks, Hickory County has an older age profile associated with the retirement community around Lake Pomme de Terre. Deaths have exceeded births here since the 1960s, and projections show that they will continue to do so. Under Scenario Z, Hickory County would lose 18 percent of its population over the next thirty years. Several rural agricultural and Ozark counties lose population through natural means in all three projection scenarios. The ten most populous Missouri counties in 1990 and 2020 are listed in Table B .