The principal reason for this rapid settlement of Western land may be found in the excellent character of the soil. For ages it had lain uncultivated, waiting for the coming of the white man. Unlike the rocky portions of New England, the ground seldom contains a large stone. Unlike the hills and valleys of the coast States, the interior territory is prairie land, level as far as the eye can see. Here the gang plows can be run; here the mowing machines and the mammoth harvesters can be used to great advantage. Thus grew the northern part of the United States. In the South the westward movement was not so rapid. The conditions of agriculture were different. The climate of South Carolina was unlike that of Massachusetts; the cold of New York was unknown in Georgia. In New England small farms were the rule; on these the work was done by the owner, with the aid of his sons or perhaps a hired man or two. In Virginia large plantations were common; here the proprietor lived at his ease and the land was cultivated by slaves. In Connecticut the crops raised were used for the most part by the farmer's family or sold in the immediate neighborhood. In North Carolina the products of the plantations were exported in great quantities. In time, however, these Southern people became dissatisfied with their early territory, as their Northern brothers had been, and gradually new States were formed to the westward. Kentucky and Tennessee were followed by Louisiana; Alabama and Mississippi were formed on one side of the great river, but a few years before Missouri and Arkansas were on the other. State after State was admitted to the Union as soon as a sufficient number of people had flocked into them, and the number of Territories was steadily diminishing. At the farther end of the continent, the Oregon country, saved to us by the heroism of Dr. Marcus Whitman, added a large territory of extremely fertile soil. South of Oregon the great State of California was added to the Union, as a result of Marshall's discovery of gold at Sutter's Fort. Yet California to-day is a State for the farmer as well as the miner. Thus finally, the Atlantic coast, the region of the Great Lakes, the Ohio valley, the Gulf States, the valley of the "Father of Waters," and the Pacific slope--in fact, almost all sections of the United States--were well peopled by farmers, drawing from the rich virgin soil immense crops of food, more than sufficient for our own people.