Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/740

708 Agricultural development. [ISGO- decade by nearly 34 per cent. a total addition in twenty years of over 8,000,000 inhabitants. Even in the older States of Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, the growth was more rapid than the general rate of increase, while in the newer States of the North, the population of Michigan more than doubled, and that of Minnesota increased more than fourfold. Over 130,000 settlers took up farms in the unknown Dakotas, while, farther south, the population of Kansas increased more than ninefold, and that of Nebraska rose from 28,841 in 1860 to 452,402 in 1880. At the same time the Gulf States were rapidly growing with the constant extension of cotton culture. The greatest proportional advances were made in the " Western division," where the new mines were opened up by the transcontinental lines. This division, which includes roughly the States west of the Kansas boundary, was, with the exception of California and Oregon, practically unsettled in 1860. Exclusive of these two States, a population of less than 200,000 was scattered over a territory covering one-third of the whole area of the country. By 1880 half a million settlers had come into these States, while the population of California had increased by almost as many more. During the next decade this movement continued, till in 1890 California had 1,200,000 inhabitants and the rest of the Western division nearly 2,000,000. Flourishing cities had grown up; and the extension of mining and cattle-raising had now gone so far that the census of 1890 announced that there was no longer a line of frontier. In the same decade the increase in the new grain States continued as before. The population of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas increased by nearly 2,000,000, or over 80 per cent. This growth of population in the grain States was made possible by the extension of the railroad system, which opened new areas for cultiva- tion and, combined with improvements in ocean navigation, brought the prairie farms into direct connexion with the factories of Europe. The westward movement was also stimulated by the further extension of the land policy of the government as expressed in the Homestead Act of 1862, which permitted the acquisition of title to lands actually settled, by the payment of a nominal fee the last step in the policy of free homes. In the meantime great improvements were made in the methods of production and in handling the crops. Agricultural machinery, which had begun to work its transformation before the war, was applied on a still larger scale; a great extension of terminal and railroad elevators facilitated storage; and a system of grading and classification was established under the influence of the speculative market, which made it possible to handle grain in the most economical manner. This was especially important in view of the great distances in transport and the many reshipments necessary. Grain could now be handled in bulk without regard to small specific lots ; and, in the case of wheat, owing to its fluid quality, the application of machinery in its handling has