New England continues to report losses, not only in the rural villages, but also in the country towns of between 2,500 and 5,000 population. This was true the last decade in every New England state except Vermont. Massachusetts towns of this type made a net loss of about 30,000, or 15%; although nearly all the larger towns and many villages in that remarkably prosperous state made gains. This class of towns has also made net losses the past decade in Indiana, Iowa, South Dakota, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi, although in these last four states the smaller communities under 2,500 made substantial gains. This indicates in some widely different sections of the country an apparently better prosperity in the open country than in many country towns. Similarly in several states, the larger towns between five and ten thousand population have netted a loss in the last decade, as in New York State, although the smaller villages have on the average prospered. _The Need of Qualitative Analysis of the Census_ We must not be staggered by mere figures. A _qualitative_ analysis of the census sometimes saves us from pessimism. Someone has said "Even a _growing_ town has no moral insurance." Mere growth does not necessarily mean improvement either in business or morals. It is quite possible that some of the "decadent" villages which have lost 15% of their population are really better places for residence than they were before and possibly fully as prosperous. It depends entirely on the kind of people that remain. If it is really the survival of the fittest, there will be no serious problem. But if it is "the heritage of the unfit," if only the unambitious and shiftless have remained, then the village is probably doomed. In any case, the situation is due to the inevitable process of social and economic adjustment. Changes in agricultural method and opportunity are responsible for much of it. Doubtless farm machinery has driven many laborers away. Likewise the rising price of land has sent away the speculative farmer to pastures new, especially from eastern Canada and the middle west in the States to the low-priced lands of the rich Canadian west.[2] The falling native birthrate, especially in New England, has been as potent a factor in diminishing rural sections as has the lure of the cities. "In the main," says Dr. Anderson in his very discriminating study of the problem, "rural depletion is over. In its whole course it has been an adjustment of industrial necessity and of economic health; everywhere it is a phase of progress and lends itself to the optimist that discerns deeper meanings. Nevertheless depletion has gone so far as to affect seriously all rural problems within the area of its action.