It is estimated that during the few years immediately following the close of the Revolutionary War several thousand persons came each year to Kentucky from the seaboard States, although many of these returned to their homes either disillusioned or because of Indian scares. In addition to the actual settlers, who cared for no more land than they could use, there were merchants who saw great profits in taking boat-loads of goods down the Ohio or by pack-trains over the mountains; lawyers and other young professional men who wished to make a start in new communities; and speculators who hoped to make fortunes in obtaining for a song extensive tracts of fertile wild land, which they vainly imagined would soon be salable at large prices for farms and town sites. Many of the towns, although ill-kept and far from prosperous in appearance, were fast extending beyond their lines of palisade and boasting of stores, law-offices, market-places, and regular streets; Louisville had now grown to a village of three hundred inhabitants, of whom over a third were fighting-men. Besides Americans, there were among the newcomers many Germans, Scotch, and Irish, thrifty in the order named. At last Kentucky was raising produce more than sufficient to feed her own people, and an export trade had sprung up. Crops were being diversified: Indian corn still remained the staple, but there were also melons, pumpkins, tobacco, and orchards; besides, great droves of horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, branded or otherwise marked, ranged at large over the country, as in old days on the Virginia and Carolina foot-hills. Away from the settlements buffaloes still yielded much beef, bacon was made from bears, and venison was a staple commodity. The fur trade was chiefly carried on by French trappers; but American hunters, like the Boones and Kenton, still gathered peltries from the streams and forests, and took or sent them to the East, either up the Ohio in bateaux or on packhorses over the mountains--paths still continually beset by savage assailants. Large quantities of ginseng were also shipped to the towns on the seaboard. Of late there had likewise developed a considerable trade with New Orleans and other Spanish towns down the Mississippi River. Traders with flatboats laden with Kentucky produce--bacon, beef, salt, and tobacco--would descend the great waterway, both of whose banks were audaciously claimed by Spain as far up as the mouth of the Ohio, and take great risks from Indian attack or from corrupt Spanish custom-house officials, whom it was necessary to bribe freely that they might not confiscate boat and cargo. This commerce was always uncertain, often ending in disaster, but immensely profitable to the unprincipled men who managed to ingratiate themselves with the Spanish authorities.