The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1893-05-05
3OO,0Oo,OOO AMERICANS
Professor Felix L. Oswald Pre-
diets the Population for 1903.
PROGRESS IN SCIENCE AND ART.


Senator PETER Sees Good Time Coming.
Interesting Predictions by Ex-Postmas-
ter General James, Professor Briggs
and NJ. Quad-secretary Rusk ON the
Future OF Agriculture,
copyright, 1885, by American Press Associa-
/ toni
a few years ago Mr.. Gladstone favored
the American public with the prediction
that in A. d. 1000 the United States would
have 600,000000 inhabitants, basing his cal
culation on the fact that in the course OF
the last century the population of our re-
public had increased 200 per cent.
He might rs wCSl have inferred that a
pine tree on its twentieth birthday would
be a mile high because in the first ten
years of its existence it had grown from an
inch to height Of twelve yards
In some of the eastern states the rate of
progress has even now fallen to one-third
of its initial velocity, and will undergo an
additional reduction as the average density
of population approaches that of the trans
atlantic hives of industry. 1t is true that
the delta of the Mississippi is more fertile
than the richest bottomlands of the lower
Danube; but, on the other hand, it is equal
ly certain that the desolation of our west
ern alkali deserts is unparalleled liz the
dreariest steppes of eastern Russia, and,
drawing the balance of probabilities, there
is no reason to believe that in 1893 the popu-
lation Of our present national territory will
exceed 300, 100000.
Politically our federation of states will
by that time comprise Canada and prob
ably Mexico to the lsthmus of Tehuantepec,
| which, before the end of the next three dec
AIDES, will be crossed by a ship railway.
The center of population will before long
change its westward line of progress to the
southwest and south. The climatic SUI
periority Of the southern uplands and the
unrivaled wealth of their natural resources
will ultimately turn the scales against
every combination of prejudice
Cotton will be spun where it grows,
sleepy old country towns will be reused by
the scream Of the locomotive, and the ter
| race lands from the Ohio to the upper Rio
Grande will be covered with orchards and
villas. The thirty-fourth parallel will cross
the center OF that garden region, and it is
| not improbable that some industrial EN-
porium of the Piedmont country''-per-
haps Birmingham, Ala.-will become the
great city of the future.
Before the middle Of the Twentieth cen
tury the increasing frequency of summer
droughts viii confront the farmers of our
middle states with the alternative of ruin
or forest culture The reckless destruction
of woodlands has never failed to make the
| summer drier and warmer and the winter
| floods more destructive, but Anglo-Amer-
lean common sense will find means TO ar
rest the progress of an evil which has
| turned the Eden of western Asia into q
desert and reduced the productive area of
our planet one-third. Every country road
will be lined with shade trees
Forest reservations will comprise the
upper ridges of all our east American
mountain ranges, and large areas of the arid
west will be redeemed by multitude of
orchard farms, for there is no doubt that
the exigencies of overpopulation will even
tually suggest the substitution of perennial
for annual food plants. Breadstuffs, as
well as sugar and vegetable oils, will to q
large extent be derived from trees that en-
rich the soil with their fertilizing leaves
and outlive their cultivators, whose labor
they will limit to the pleasant work of the
harvest month, and protect him against the
worst plague of the plains by affording shell
| ter to myriads of insectivorous birds.
In the Atlantic states competition for de-
| sirable tracts of real estate will before long
| grow fierce, and within the next thirty
| years events will prove that, while the risk
| of n religious war has been greatly over
rated, the danger of war of races has been
quite as much moderated. The progress
of education is gradually assimilating the
intelligent classes of all creeds, but race in
stincts are less transient than dogmas, and
! the negro problem will yet loom up as the
black specter of the North American CONT
| nent.
North of the Tennessee river Sambo
Africanus will vanish as soon as the in
crease of population brings him into seri-
Gus competition with European immi-
| grants, but there are regions where eli
matte conditions favor the chance of his
survival. On the Rio Grande the aborig-
ines and Philippians may coalesce against
the north. Caucasian races and the strug-
gle for supremacy will involve frequent APP
peals to the arbitrament of force
To conclude with few miscellaneous
predictions: The problem of aerial investi-
cation will be solved within the next TWEEN
ty years. Transcontinental mails will be
forwarded by means of pneumatic tubes
/, The perils of ocean navigation will be
greatly lessened by the introduction of
companion steamers, starting pairwise and
maintaining communication bya system of
| fog bells and electric refractors and in 1893
| millions of dwelling houses will be artif-
cially cooled in summer, as they are now
| heated in winter.
| f. l.. OSWALD, M. ID.
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