England was more thickly settled than the other sections of the country, but much of the land was poor and many of the people sought their living upon the sea by fishing or in trade. Then, too, an ever increasing number of the sons of New England were leaving their native section to find new homes upon the richer lands of the West.

The people of New England were mainly of English stock and the greater part of them were members of the Congregational Church, which had been set up in that section by the

of the Middle States

The people Puritans. The inhabitants of the Middle States, on the other hand, sprang from many races and represented many different religious denominations. Then, as now, New York City was the home of people from every land in Europe. The descendants of the Quaker followers of William Penn and of the German and Scotch-Irish settlers who found safety from oppression in his colony, together with many recent pioneers from New England, made up the population of Pennsylvania. The natural resources of New York and Pennsylvania were greater and more varied than those of New England. Partly because of this fact, and partly because of the various races who settled

in them, there was a far greater diversity of tastes and habits among the people of these states than among those who lived in the land of the Puritans. Yet life in the Middle States still ran its quiet course very much as it had before the Revolution. Washington Irving tells us that when Rip Van Winkle awoke about 1800, after a sleep of many years, he saw little that was new to him except the strange faces in the places of the old familiar ones.

The people of the South, like those of the North, were

small

mainly of English, Scotch, or Irish origin. But the climate and physical features of the South differed from those of the North; Great and, as always happens where such differences exist, the people planters and of the South were unlike the men of the North in their habits farmers in and ways of living. A large part of the land in the South was the South still covered with forests, the roads were poor, and in general life was more backward in that section than in the North. There was also a greater contrast between the rich and the poor in the South than in any other section of the country. Along the rivers of Virginia and near the coast in South Carolina there were many large plantations, whose owners lived in

fine houses, owned many negro slaves, and were often men of education and of wide influence in their communities. These rich planters were a proud but sociable and hospitable class, fond of outdoor life and of such sports as horse-racing. But the small farmers of the South, who lived in rude cabins in clearings in the woods, far outnumbered the wealthy planters. They were simple in their lives, very ignorant of the outside world, but jealous of their rights and always ready to fight to maintain them.

The population of the West was growing rapidly when the nineteenth century opened. This section, which had only Pioneers of about one hundred thousand inhabitants in 1790, had nearly the growing four hundred thousand in 1800. South of the Ohio River the West settlers were largely from the South and some of them had brought their negro slaves with them. You will remember that slavery had been forbidden north of the Ohio River by the Ordinance of 1787. The people of the West came from the old states in the East, but their life on the frontier had a marked effect on their habits and character. It made them hardy, bold, self-reliant, and sometimes rough and boastful. In the early West all men had to work for a living and as a consequence there was far more equality among them than in the older settled sections of the country. Men became more neighborly and more democratic when they became pioneers.

disease

One hundred years ago nearly all the people in every section. of our land lived a hearty and natural life in the open country. Health and Everywhere there was a rude plenty of the actual necessities of life. Yet we have better health and live longer than our ancestors did in those days, because we have learned truths about hygiene and sanitation of which they were ignorant. A century ago houses were poorly ventilated, food was often badly cooked, and nearly every man drank intoxicating liquor. Little attention was given to the purity of the water supply and typhoid fever was widely prevalent. There were dreadful epidemics of yellow fever in New York and Philadelphia for several years just before and after 1800. It is now known that this disease, which was then common in the South, is transmitted from man to man only by a particular kind of mosquito, and that it can be prevented everywhere by exterminating these mosquitoes. Vaccination was not commonly

practiced until the early part of the nineteenth century, and before it became general thousands died of smallpox every year. On the frontier nearly every one suffered from malaria. It was only through a long and bitter experience with these and other preventable diseases that our people slowly learned the need of discovering and obeying the laws of health.

Farming in the Early Days of the Republic.-When the nineteenth century dawned the American people were a race

of farmers. In all sections of our country the cultivation of A race of the soil was the chief means of making a living. Nearly all farmers the farms in the northern states, and many of those in the South, were small or of moderate size. The small American farm of those days was almost always tilled by its owner with the help of his sons and of an occasional hired man. Sometimes neighbors helped each other by working together at husking bees, logrollings, or barn

A Grain Cradle

raisings. In the South there were many very large farms or plantations, as they were called, upon which the labor was performed by negro slaves.

The implements used in 1800 were still those of colonial times. Clumsy wooden plows and harrows were practically

the only agricultural machines drawn by horses or oxen. Most Tools and farm work was then done with spades, heavy hoes, wooden implements forks and rakes, and scythes, sickles, and flails. On the western frontier the axe was the tool oftenest in the hands of the settler as he cleared away the heavy forest. The use of such tools made farming the hardest kind of manual labor. Better agricultural implements came into use very slowly. The first iron plow was patented in 1797 and such plows were gradually introduced during the next twenty-five years. A patent was issued for the grain cradle in 1803, and about the same time. the fanning mill for cleaning grain after it is threshed was

Crops and domestic animals

A land of rude plenty

invented. But most of our modern farm machinery, as we shall see, did not begin to come into use until after 1830.

Our ancestors one hundred years ago raised most of the common food plants and domestic animals that we grow today. Wheat, rye, oats, and barley, cabbages and turnips, apples and peaches had been brought by the early colonists from their Old World homes. Indian corn, potatoes, and pumpkins were natives of America. The domestic animals, horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep, came from Europe to America with the settlers. These animals were raised in most of the settled parts of the country, though oxen were still more widely used than horses for draft purposes. In the South tobacco was the most valuable crop until 1803 when the first place was taken

by cotton. After they had cleared their lands, the western settlers farmed very much as they had in their earlier homes in the East.

In the early years of • our national life the American farmer was handicapped by the difficulty of transporting his produce to market. But land was plentiful and cheap, and it was easy for every man to acquire a farm of his own upon which he could make a living for his family, even though he had few conveniences and little ready money. With the invention of farm machinery and the building of railroads, after 1830, American agriculture entered upon a new period of rapid growth and great prosperity.

Manufacturing and Trade. The small part of the American people who did not live upon farms in 1800 were mostly engaged The age of in manufacturing, in fishing, or in some form of trade or com"homespun" merce. Manufactures were in a very backward condition. The people were still living in the age of "homespun." In many sections of the country there was a spinning wheel and a loom in almost every house. A large part of the coarse linen and woolen cloth with which our people were clothed in those