[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, 1819; Maine, 1820; Missouri, 1821.

%308.  Slave and Free States.%—­In the second place, it brought about a great struggle over slavery.  You remember that when the thirteen colonies belonged to Great Britain slavery existed in all of them; that when they became independent states some began to abolish slavery; and that in time five became free states and eight remained slave states.  Slavery was also gradually abolished in New York and New Jersey, so that of the original thirteen only six were now to be counted as slave states.  You remember again that when the Continental Congress passed the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory lying between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, Pennsylvania and the Mississippi River, it ordained that in the Northwest Territory there should be no slavery.  In consequence of this, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were admitted into the Union