on: Kitchen utensils [1]]

[Footnote 1: From originals in the National Museum, Washington.]

%306. Clearing and Planting.%--The land about the cabin was cleared
by grubbing the bushes and cutting down trees under a foot in diameter
and burning them. Big trees were "deadened," or killed, by cutting a
"girdle" around them two or three feet above the ground, deep enough to
destroy the sap vessels and so prevent the growth of leaves.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a delightful account of life in the West, read W. C.
Howells's _Recollections of Life in Ohio_ (edited by his son, William
Dean Howells).]

In the ground thus laid open to the sun were planted corn, potatoes, or
wheat, which, when harvested, was threshed with a flail and fanned and
cleaned with a sheet. At first the crop would be scarcely sufficient for
home use. But, as time passed, there would be some to spare, and this
would be wagoned to some river town and sold or exchanged for
"store goods."

If the settler chose his farm wisely, others would soon settle near by,
and when a cluster of clearings had been made, some enterprising
speculator would appear, take up a quarter section, cut it into town
lots, and call the place after himself, as Piketown, or Leesburg, or
Gentryville. A storekeeper with a case or two of goods would next
appear, then a tavern would be erected, and possibly a blacksmith shop
and a mill, and Piketown or Leesburg would be established. Hundreds of
such ventures failed; but hundreds of others succeeded and are to-day
prosperous villages.

[Illustration: Mississippi produce boat[1]]

[Footnote 1: From a model in the National Museum at Washington.]

%307. The New States._--While the northern stream of population was thus
traveling across New York, northern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and into
Michigan, the middle stream was pushing down the Ohio. By 1820 it had
greatly increased the population of southern Indiana and Illinois, and
crossing the Mississippi was going up the Missouri River. In the South
the destruction of the Indian power by Jackson in 1813, and the opening
of the Indian land to settlement, led to a movement of the southern
stream of population across Alabama to Mobile. Now, what were some of
the results of this movement of population into the Mississippi valley?
In the first place, it caused the formation and admission into the Union
of six states in five years. They were Indiana, 1816; Mississippi, 1817;
Illinois, 1818; Alabama, 1