. The story of corn and the westward migration. ould soonbe divided into three sections, the North, the South,and the West; and that each would eventuallybecome independent of the others. ^52 The Story oj Corn The great part that the grain fields were to playin the prosperity of the West was to be broughtabout not by national aid, but by the genius andskill of one man. Human ingenuity is greater thangeographical barriers, and human skill was at thattime already giving to the world a series of inventionsdestined to free the pent-up energy of the corncountry. The first of these was the steamboat
. The story of corn and the westward migration. ould soonbe divided into three sections, the North, the South,and the West; and that each would eventuallybecome independent of the others. ^52 The Story oj Corn The great part that the grain fields were to playin the prosperity of the West was to be broughtabout not by national aid, but by the genius andskill of one man. Human ingenuity is greater thangeographical barriers, and human skill was at thattime already giving to the world a series of inventionsdestined to free the pent-up energy of the corncountry. The first of these was the steamboat. Andwhat could be more proper than a brief study of the man whomade it possiblefor the productsof the great corncountry to reachthe outsideworld? Robert inventor ofthe steamboat,Robert Fulton,was born in LittleBritain, Lan-caster County,Pennsylvania, in1765. His fatherdied while he wasquite young and,the family beingpoor, Robert wasable to acquire only the rudiments of an educationin school. His peculiar genius manifested itself at. After a painting by Benjamin West Robert Fulton^ builder of the first A merican steamboat. His invention resulted in changing the commercial habits of man and the policy of nations Connecting the Corn Country with the World ijj a very early age, and he spent his hours of recrea-tion in the shop of a mechanic or in the use of hispencil, for he was both mechanic and artist. Whenhe became of age, in 1786, he purchased with hissavings a small farm in Washington County, Penn-sylvania, where he settled his widowed mother whilehe went to England to study art. In 1793 he con-ceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam, butit was not until seven years later that he turned hisattention seriously to the construction of a steam-boat. In the meantime he had become a and had published several articles oncanals. Having obtained patents on certain canalimprovements, he went to France with the intentionof introducing them into that coun
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidstoryofco, booksubjectcorn
