THE GLEANERS 73 



reclaiming land that never should have been 

 put under the plow) the early Reapers tested 

 and rejected as they advanced, seeking for- 

 ever the fattest acres. If one could construct 

 a map showing the area actually under culti- 

 vation for each of the several decades the re- 

 sult would show grotesque empires indeed. 

 Note the Kentucky woodsmen in 1804, when 

 the population east of the Mississippi was very 

 tenuous indeed, starting forth into unknown 

 regions with their long trains of wagons, with 

 their women and children and their cattle. 

 Iowa and Illinois offered no inducements to 

 them near at home. The land was so bounte- 

 ous all about them that surely somewhere in 

 the region between the great river and the 

 mountains there must be other empires of still 

 greater riches. The Oregon Trail in the late 

 'forties was a sympton of the same unrest 

 greediness, conservation of labor run riot. 

 They traveled three thousand miles with ox 

 teams, seeking not Ultima Thule, but Elysium. 

 It was not until after the Civil War that the 

 homesteaders arrived in sufficient number to 

 begin blocking off the Corn Belt systematic- 

 ally. The map on page 71, taken from the 

 1910 Census Reports on Agriculture, illus- 



