the virgin soil of the river valleys and prairies attracted the
farmer. Good soils have been the most continuous attraction to the
farmer's frontier. The land hunger of the Virginians drew them down the
rivers into Carolina, in early colonial days; the search for soils took
the Massachusetts men to Pennsylvania and to New York. As the eastern
lands were taken up migration flowed across them to the west. Daniel
Boone, the great backwoodsman, who combined the occupations of hunter,
trader, cattle-raiser, farmer, and surveyor--learning, probably from the
traders, of the fertility of the lands of the upper Yadkin, where the
traders were wont to rest as they took their way to the Indians, left
his Pennsylvania home with his father, and passed down the Great Valley
road to that stream. Learning from a trader of the game and rich
pastures of Kentucky, he pioneered the way for the farmers to that
region. Thence he passed to the frontier of Missouri, where his
settlement was long a landmark on the frontier. Here again he helped to
open the way for civilization, finding salt licks, and trails, and land.
His son was among the earliest trappers in the passes of the Rocky
Mountains, and his party are said to have been the first to camp on the
present site of Denver. His grandson, Col. A. J. Boone, of Colorado, was
a power among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains, and was appointed an
agent by the government. Kit Carson's mother was a Boone.[19:1] Thus
this family epitomizes the backwoodsman's advance across the continent.

The farmer's advance came in a distinct series of waves. In Peck's New
Guide to the West, published in Boston in 1837, occurs this suggestive
passage:

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
family chiefly upon the natural growth of vegetation, called
the "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 cabbage, beans, corn for
roasting ears, cucumbers, and potatoes. A log cabin, and,
occasionally, a stable and 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 whe