30 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



Generally, in all the Western settlements, three classes, like 

 the waves of the ocean, have rolled one after the other. First 

 comes the pioneer, who depends for the subsistence of his fam- 

 ily chiefly upon the natural growth of vegetation called the 

 1 'range," and the proceeds of hunting. His implements of 

 agriculture are rude, chiefly of his own make, and his efforts 

 directed mainly to a crop of corn and a ''truck patch." The 

 last is a rude garden for growing cabbages, beans, corn for 

 roasting ears, cucumbers and potatoes. A log cabin, and, oc- 

 casionally, a stable and a corn crib, and a field of a dozen 

 acres, the timber girdled or "deadened," and fenced, are 

 enough for his occupancy. It is quite immaterial whether he 

 ever becomes the owner of the soil. He is the occupant for the 

 time being, pays no rent, and feels as independent as the "lord 

 of the manor." With a horse and a cow, and one or two 

 breeders of swine, he strikes into the woods with his family, 

 and becomes the founder of a new countrjr, or perhaps a state. 

 He builds his cabin, gathers round him a few other families of 

 similar tastes and habits, and occupies until the range is some- 

 what subdued, and hunting a little precarious, or, which is more 

 frequently the case, till the neighbors crowd around, roads, 

 bridges and fields annoy him, and he lacks elbow room. The 

 preemption law enables him to dispose of his cabin and corn 

 fields to the next class of emigrants; and, to employ his own 

 figure, he "breaks for high timber," "clears out for the New 

 Purchase" or migrates to Arkansas or Texas, to work the same 

 process over. 



The next class of emigrants purchase the lands, add field to 

 field, clear out the roads, throw rough bridges over the streams, 

 put up hewn log houses with glass windows and brick or stone 

 chimneys, occasionally plant orchards, build mills, school houses, 

 court-houses, and exhibit the picture and forms of plain frugal, 

 civilized life. 



Another wave rolls on. The men of capital and enterprise 

 come. The settler is ready to sell out and take advantage of 

 the rise in property, push farther into the interior, and become 

 himself a man of capital and enterprise in turn. The small 

 .village rises to a spacious town or city; substantial edifices of 

 brick, extensive fields, orchards, and gardens, colleges and 



