Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-10-22
Wealth and Rural Population.

Wealth and Rural Population.
A State, a county, or a hamlet may
easily become poorer as its inhabitants
increase, but a gain in wealth is usually
understood to imply a like advance in
population. The results of the census.
taking this year in Eastern States like
New Jersey and Massachusetts, and in
Western States like Iowa and Wiscon-
sin, show, however, that hundreds OF
American communities are steadily los
ing ground in population, while they
gain in average and aggregate wealth.
They prosper, but their inhabitants
slowly grow fewer year after year and
decade after decade. Indeed, the growth
of wealth in a farming district, so far
from implying an increasing population,
is now probably the most powerful of all
agencies which make such communities
lose rather than gain from one census to
another. The growing desire for city
life aud the decreasing birth rate in ru-
raj districts help. of course, but it is a
curious study to consider how naturally
and powerfully wealth tells against a
community's increase in population.
One great ambition of a prosperous
farmer is to add acre to, acre and field to
field 1t is a desire almost universal
among vigorous Americans, and it rare+
ly dies while prosperity and health con-
tinue. Year by year the small farms
are absorbed, as minor railroads are
swallowed up in great systems, and with
the wiping out of each little homestead
the demand for labor is lessened, and
the room for families diminished. The
large landowner gains, from the same
wealth which enables him to buy up a
small farm, the ability to employ more
machinery than was possible when rural
communities we're not so well-to-dO, and
labor is much more thoroughly sub-divi-
ded than on small farms. The owner of
a modest homestead spends much of his
time working upon his garden, and upon
crops which require NOR labor to an
acre than it is necessary to spend upon
ten cultivated by wholesale. The result
is that two unmarried farm hands take
care of the same land which once kept
three or four heads of families busy.
But increasing wealth has not checked
the growth of population in rural coun-
ties by it's effects upon farms and farm
ers alone. The humble home manufac-
turers of crossroads hamlets have felt
its pressure even more than small farm
ers, and at many corner where there
were formerly mill or two, shoeshop,
and perhaps a cabinet-maker's shop, be-
sides the inevitable store, now only the
latter remains. Of course the great rea-
son why these little industrial establish
ments have been swallowed up in the
huge mills and factories of cities is the
cheap labor of machinery, but it has not
been the only agency at work. AS farm
ers have become prosperous they have
acquired the habit of travel and of visit
ing cities often, and this has naturally
led to the purchase of nearly all import
ant articles, such as house furnishing
goods OF clothing, in cities or large
towns. Prosperity has further stimu'
lated the ambition and elevated the de-
sires of farmers and their families by
multiplying city visitors in country
homes, and the contrast between the
iolo oh fhnan
and the old'fashioned goods produced in
DeighbOrhOnd shops has aided IN destroy
ing the demand for the Latter. 1t has
been impossible for an isolated cabinet
maker, for instance, to compete with the
productions of skilled designers and
thorough workmen, aided by the capital
of great city manufacturing establish
ments, and the best work of distant pro-
ducing centers is made easy of access by
cheap and prompt rail transportation.
A very different and yet somewhat re-
lated effect of the growth of wealth
among farmers, one which is quite as
great an obstacle to the increase of pop
ulation, in any tolerably well settled ag-
ricultural district, is the discomfort with
which it fills the young, especially am
bilious young nen. High'spirited boys
grow up to manhood, and, instead OF
inding everybody poor and everybody
working hard as in the days when their
fathers were young. they see the best
land included in well cultivated farms,
all of it held at high price. There is
much comfort and no little luxury IN the
community. and it is no longer possible
to start in life by breaking in cheap new
land and setting to work to create
home for a wife also accustomed to
work and used to nothing much better
than what her husband can give her
The young man sees that he cannot nave
a home of his own equal to that OF his
father or of the woman he would like TO
marry. and so he goes West. From
Maine he NAV move TO Michigan, while
his fellow in Michigan migrates to Min
neseta or Nebraska, and from the older
parts of these last States other young
men push on to Dakota or Oregon. Eve
rywhere the tendency is the same, to tiee
from the vain desires and constant hope
less rivalry at home and seek fortune
either on some new soil or in city.
Wealth drives away much of the young
life and ambition of the community, as
it also crowds cut small farmers and
tends to expel sheemakers and other
cross roads artisans. Instead of won
dering that a settled farming district
should not grow in population as fast as
in wealth. it is more reasonable to feel
surprised when it does gain in both ways
at once. In the country men and money
do not easily multiply together.-lCleve
land Leader.
THE latest dodge to displace RepubliT