ABSTRACT
The chance that improvements in river travel might displace the boatmen was not a deterrent to progress. After 1783 a vigorous spirit of progress animated the country, expressing itself first of all in projects for the improvement of agriculture. New Yorkers joined the movement in 1791 by forming the New York Society for Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures; the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture entered the field in 1792; and the Society of Virginia for Promoting Agriculture came into being in 1811. The stolidity of the farmer resisted innovation but that trait was doubtless essential to his regimen of hard and tedious labour. Transportation before 1815 served mainly to supply farmers with needed goods, to get their produce to market, and to take pioneers to new homes. Canoes, pirogues, and bateaux of the French regime continued to move on the western waters, although their relative importance declined sharply after 1790.
