I would argue that with the invention of the rifle, it was easier IF you could find game, especially since others living in your vicinity were hunting also. Despite the risk of weather and insects, farming was much more predictable as a food source.
There was a brief period of time in which rifles were available and game was easy to find. 20 million bison were hunted to the brink of extinction within a couple decades.
In the "old" days, unused land was there to be had, but, depending on where you were, it was heavily treed or rock infested. There may have been hostel natives or bandits, making isolation potentially dangerous. Cattle ranchers, who would claim umpteenth thousands of acres were particularly testy. In the mid parts of the nineteenth century, "good" free land was hard to find for farming.
