7



culation upon the rate of construction in the year 1881, and
allowing for "at least one commercial crisis and a railway
panic," in the two decades. He places Kentucky in class
second of this division, which he thinks will require one linear
mile of railway to eight square miles of territory. He, there-
fore, estimates that, in 1900, Kentucky will require 4,710 miles
of railroad, as against 1,598 miles in operation in 1881. But
this computation is made on the estimate, so long received, of
the area of Kentucky as being only a little over 37,000 square
miles. Computed on an area of 42,600 square miles, which
more recent, and, we have reason to believe, more accurate sur-
veys have assigned her, the railway mileage in Kentucky,
according to this formula of Mr. Atkinson's, should be, in the
year 1900, 5,325 miles, an increase over the mileage of 1881 of
3,727, and over her present mileage of 3,190; larger, too, than
that of Massachusetts in 1881 by 3,375.
  There are peculiar reasons, however, why Massachusetts
should require an amount of railroad service, in proportion to
her territory, much beyond other wealthy and prosperous
States; reasons which make all comparison, of the kind at-
tempted, difficult, and may cause the most careful deductions
to prove fallacious. Massachusetts has a much larger popula-
tion, in proportion to extent of territory, than any other State,
with the exception of Rhode Island. In 1880 her population,
per square mile, was more than double that of New York, and
nearly treble that of Pennsylvania. While, notwithstanding
the sterility of her soil, nearly every available acre is in culti-
vation, the great bulk of this population lives in the towns and
cities, is engaged in manufacturing, and must be fed with
breadstuffs and meats largely drawn from distant sources of
supply. I confess to some surprise at the extent of the urban
population of Massachusetts, compared with that of the agri-
cultural States, upon an examination of the list of towns and
the multitude of their inhabitants, as furnished by the census
of 1880. Beside a vast number of villages of a population less
than one thousand, Massachusetts counted, then, one hundred
and sixty-nine (169) towns with a population of more than one
thousand, of which forty-seven (47) had a population of more
than five thousand. At the same date Kentucky had forty-