ters and who are now retired and enjoying their old-age pensions. They say that the Florida climate is what has attracted them there; others add that their pension dollars go farther in Florida than elsewhere in the States. 88

If the Finns have grouped themselves in the United States from coast to coast and north to south, many factors have influenced the development of their settlements. Not the least has been the fact that almost half of them have preferred rural areas rather than the meltingpots of the big cities. However, since their total figure had already decreased to less than 100,000 by 1950, the census of that year no longer brought out any statistical tables about them. The last figures to report on their whereabouts appear in the 1940 census, according to which 63,759 Finnish-born residents lived in cities, 32,284 were farmers, and 21,167 more lived in rural areas. 89 How the scales have been balanced between farming and other occupations the chapters that follow will delineate, for Minnesota - the young optimistic state - also called the Finns to its forests and fields, its sawmills and mines.

88. W. .Jokinen, op. cit. p. 61.

89. U. S. Census of Population, 1940. Special Reports.

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