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30 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
1,400,000 square miles of territory in the West, of which
only a tithe will ever be available for cultivation, it will
be seen that the wholly unoccupied portion of the avail-
able territory must now be reduced to very small
dimensions.
The next point to which I wish to draw attention is
the actual population of the first two groups, exclusive
of the town population, and the proportion to the square
mile. This figure I work out from the tables at pp.
26-31 of the Introduction to the Population Statistics
of the United States Census:

Net Rural Population of the United States, exclusive of the -Town
Population, in different Groups of States, with the Numbers per
Square Mile.

Number per
Total Town Net Rural Square Mile
Population. Population. Population. of Rural
Population.
Group I. 21,835,111 7,939,334 13,895,777 35
II. 19,656,666 3, 61 4,835 16,041,831 26l
"
" III. a . . 6,761,132 847,282 5.9 1 3,850 9}
" III. b • 1,902,874 534,659 1,368,21 5 1
Total of III. . 8,664,006 1,381,941 7,282.065 - -
Grand Total . 50,155,7 83 12,936,110 37, 21 9,673 ut

Thus while the rural population in the thirteen
original States is 35 per square mile, it amounts to no
less than 26t per square mile in twelve other States
which we are accustomed to speak of as more or less
unoccupied. This is clearly not the case. An addition
of 8! per square mile, or of little more than 5 millions
in all, would make them as populous as the rural parts
of the original States. Group II I. a, though it has a
larger area to fill up. would nevertheless become as
populous per square mile rurally as the older group of