ther 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, cow, and one or two
breeders of swine, he strikes into the woods with his family,
and becomes the founder of a new county, or perhaps state. He
builds his cabin, gathers around him a few other families of
similar tastes and habits, and occupies till the range is
somewhat 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
cornfield to the next class of emigrants; and, to employ his
own figures, he "breaks for the 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, etc., 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 the 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, gardens, colleges, and
churches are seen. Broadcloths, silks, leghorns, crapes, and
all the refinements, luxuries, elegancies, frivolities, and
fashions are in vogue. Thus wave after wave is rolling
westward; the real Eldorado is still farther on.

A portion of the two first classes remain stationary amidst
the general movement, improve their habits and condition, and
rise in the scale of society.

The writer has traveled much amongst the first class, the real
pioneers. He has lived many years in connection with the
second grade; and now the third wave is sweeping over large
districts of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Migration has
become almost a habit in the West. Hundreds of m