Let's rub some numbers together.

• From the Susquehanna River to the Gap in the hills, Lancaster County contains 602,000 acres of land.

• The county's population is expected to top 600,000 by 2030, rising from about 500,000 now.

That means that in 22 years, give or take a year or two, there will be approximately one resident for every acre in the county.

A density of one to one.

Now let's compare with yesteryear.

A century ago, the county's population was rising from 160,000.

So the people-to-land ratio then was one resident to just under four acres.

One to four versus one to one. Quite a change.

Population density is just one reason that Lancastrians in 1908 lived in a very different way from Lancastrians in 2008 — but it's probably the most significant reason.

The explosion of automobiles and the paved highways and parking lots that accommodate them would be a close second.

The information explosion would be a close third. But personal computers haven't done much to alter the physical landscape — yet.

Milton S. Hershey supposedly purchased the first automobile in the county in 1900. Cars remained a novelty in 1908.

But as of the end of 2006, Lancastrians had registered 457,356 vehicles.

Considering that there are tens of thousands of Plain residents who don't own cars and tens of thousands of residents under 16 who don't own cars, there likely are fewer drivers than vehicles here today.

For the time being, then, there's more than one acre for each resident and more than one vehicle for each driver.

Something to think about as we multiply and drive each other crazy.

Trees come down on Mulberry

Last week a tree limb broke and fell on a van parked on Mulberry Street between Orange and Chestnut.

That was the last fall.

The tree and two of its neighbors came down in short order.

Actually, the timing of the breakage and removal of the three Bradford Pears was coincidental. The trees had been scheduled for destruction.

"They were just falling apart and deemed hazardous," says Lancaster's arborist, Jim Bowers.

The city's Shade Tree Commission has turned thumbs down on Bradford Pears for several years. The trees sport pretty white blossoms in spring, but their trunks can't support their branches.

The city has removed more than half of the Bradford Pears that were planted three and a half decades ago, Bowers estimates. And more will fall.

"We really hate taking live trees down," he says, "but some of these branches could have broken off and hit tombstones. Some already had."

The tombstones Bowers refers to are in the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery in that block of Mulberry. U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens is buried there.

New trees will be planted along that street, Bowers notes, but plans for cemetery restoration may delay planting.

Shelby Nauman, project manager for the James Street Improvement District, speaks to that subject.

Landscape architects created a quarter-million-dollar master plan for the cemetery in 2005, and Nauman hopes that plan can move forward this spring.

But the improvement district and the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery Board must set priorities. They have only $75,000 in funds.

They also must resolve liability issues. Nobody owns the graveyard, although the city takes care of it.

"If it's not clear that we're going to do anything with the sidewalk (along Mulberry Street)," says Nauman, "then we'll try to get trees back in there this year."

CONTACT US: jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781