The class of settlers of which Boone is mentioned as a type, is not large; but it was the class, to paraphrase a line of Scott, which dared to face the Indian in his den. They were hunters of wild animals and wild men. But there was a larger class, the equal in sturdiness of the former, and though less romantic in conduct, entitled to recognition by posterity. They were the men who cleared farms and built up houses and towns. In the valleys of the Yadkin and Catawba, is found a large percentage of population of German descent, which is the source of the German blood found in the western counties. Not far behind the Scotch-Irish pioneers, by the same route, came the astute hard-working ancestors of this class of citizens. Many were scattered through Virginia, and some drifted even beyond the line of the old North State. The least mixture of blood is found in the valley of the Catawba. It is a mongrel German, known in the North as “Pennsylvania Dutch.” The traveller from central Pennsylvania will frequently forget, while in the Catawba valley, that he is away from home. Governor Vance, whose long political career has familiarized him with all sections of the state, declares that in agriculture, as a general rule, they have excelled all other classes, especially in thrift economy and the art of preserving their lands from sterility. “To this day there is less of that desolation, known in the South as ‘old field,’ to be seen among the lands of their descendants, than amongst any others of our people.... A sturdier race of upright citizens is not to be found in this or any other state. Their steady progress in wealth and education, is one of their characteristics, and their enduring patience and unflinching patriotism, tested by many severe trials, proclaim them worthy of the great sires from whom they sprang.” Like their kin in Pennsylvania, and scattered over other states, west and south, “they are Lutheran in religion and Democratic in politics, and they are as steadfast as the hills in each.” The Scotch and Germans of the upper plains and valleys, from which the trans-montane counties drew the bulk of their population, exist in the rural districts unmixed. There has been, until very recently, little immigration since the opening up of the great West soon after the Revolution, the growth of population being almost wholly a natural increase. It is further a fact, to the disadvantage of this community, as a similar condition of things is to all other old communities, that many of the most enterprising children of each generation leave their homes for fields of industry in new sections. Conservatism in the old community is an inevitable result. The western section of North Carolina is a conspicuous example. The same statesman, whom we have already quoted, a native there, has said: