his land in quantities of not less than one hundred and sixty acres
at two dollars per acre, by a cash payment of fifty cents per acre
and the rest in installments running over a period of four years;
but by the new law of 1820 the settler was permitted to buy as small
a tract as eighty acres from the government at a minimum price of a
dollar and a quarter per acre, without credit. The price of labor in
the towns along the Ohio, coupled with the low cost of provisions,
made it possible for even a poor day-laborer from the East to
accumulate the necessary amount to make his land-purchase.
[Footnote: See, for example, Peck, New Guide for Emigrants to the
West (1837), 107-134; Bradbury, Travels, 286.]

Having in this way settled down either as a squatter or as a land-
owner, the pioneer proceeded to hew out a clearing in the midst of
the forest. [Footnote: Kingdom, America, 10, 54, 63; Flint, Letters,
206; McMaster, United States, V., 152-155; Howells, Life in Ohio,
115.] Commonly he had selected his lands with reference to the value
of the soil, as indicated by the character of the hardwoods, but
this meant that the labor of clearing was the more severe in good
soil. Under the sturdy strokes of his axe the light of day was let
into the little circle of cleared ground. [Footnote: Hall,
Statistics of the West, 98, 101, 145.] With the aid of his
neighbors, called together under the social attractions of a
"raising," with its inevitable accompaniment of whiskey and a
"frolic," he erected his log-cabin. "America," wrote Birkbeck, "was
bred in a cabin." [Footnote: Birkbeck, Notes on Journey, 94.]

Having secured a foothold, the settler next proceeded to "girdle" or
"deaden" an additional forest area, preparatory to his farming
operations. This consisted in cutting a ring through the bark around