That thing was typical. The railroad--Hill's railroad and all the other big transcontinentals--lent itself to the fine development of all the traffic that might possibly be obtained within its territory. Heretofore it had roughly combed traffic possibilities, now it began to screen them with a fine mesh screen. The emigrant bureau did its part of the work; the railroad went further and set itself to develop every inch of available land along its lines. Attractive excursions brought settlers to the new country, the railroad was of practical assistance in finding locations for them. Everything is being brought toward the development of those great new States of the West: cross-roads are beginning to become villages; villages, cities. A little time before his death, Mr. Harriman announced that there would be four great cities spread across the American continent--New York, Chicago, Salt Lake, and San Francisco. He then took it upon his own rather roomy shoulders to make Salt Lake City worthy of a place in the file. From this activity in the West, the Eastern railroads have stolen a lesson. Originally built in many cases to serve the needs of the farmers of some particular locality, they have become merged and welded in a way that has caused them to serve the industrial interests of the country more particularly than the agricultural. One of the valuable old properties of the Pennsylvania Railroad in New Jersey rejoices in the name of Freehold and Jamesburg Agricultural Railroad. When, after the serious slump in traffic that followed the panic in 1907, the railroads of the East found themselves, for the first time in a decade, with more facilities than freight, they began to cultivate more carefully the traffic branch of transportation science. They took quite readily to the lesson that the transcontinentals gave them. Then they proceeded to put it into effect in practical fashion. For some years past the problem of the unimportant branches has been a serious one with the big Eastern systems. These branches, many of them once profitable feeders, have been allowed to deteriorate and retrograde, while main-line traffic developed and increased under active conditions of competition. The little towns along the branches seemed to retrograde too; while the busy cities of the country, strung along the main lines of the railroad, absorbed new growth and new energy. Sometimes the branch lines were paralleled by interurban electric railroads, which were able to operate at far less cost than steam railroads, and consequently to charge lower rates of fare; and their slight passenger traffic continued to grow lighter. The freight traffic had long since dwindled to slim proportions; the branch lines were almost entirely agricultural railroads; and the farmers of the East were discouraged and disheartened.