88 The Winning of the West 



of procuring large quantities of fertile land at low 

 prices. 



To the average settler the land was the prime 

 source of livelihood. A man of hardihood, thrift, 

 perseverance, and bodily strength could surely 

 make a comfortable living for himself and his fam 

 ily, if only he could settle on a good tract of rich 

 soil; and this he could do if he went to the new 

 country. As a matter of course, therefore, vigor 

 ous young frontiersmen swarmed into the region 

 so recently won. 



These men merely wanted so much land as they 

 could till. Others, however, looked at it from a very 

 different standpoint. The land was the real treas 

 ury-chest of the country. It was the one commodity 

 which appealed to the ambitious and adventurous 

 side of the industrial character at that time and in 

 that place. It was the one commodity the manage 

 ment of which opened chances of procuring vast 

 wealth, and especially vast speculative wealth. To 

 the American of the end of the eighteenth century 

 the roads leading to great riches were as few as 

 those leading to competency were many. He could 

 not prospect for mines of gold and of silver, of 

 iron, copper, and coal; he could not discover and 

 work wells of petroleum and natural gas; he could 

 not build up, sell, and speculate in railroad systems 

 and steamship companies; he could not gamble in 

 the stock market; he could not build huge manu 

 factories of steel, of cottons, of woolens; he could 

 not be a banker or a merchant on a scale which 



