The Yankee and the Teuton in WisconsinSchafer, Joseph
History
The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin
Schafer, Joseph
Germans -- Wisconsin; Wisconsin -- Social life and customs
raw land, he could count on clearing enough in a couple of winters with
his own hands to raise food crops, and he looked upon the prospect of
spending ten, twenty, or twenty-five years in fully subduing his 80-
or 100-acre farm with no unreasoning dread or carking impatience. The
remark of Diederichs characterized the German preëmptor: “If I once
have land enough under cultivation to raise our food supplies, I will
win through.” Whereas the Yankee wanted to break 40, 60, 80, or 100
acres of prairie or openings the first year, the German contemplated
the possession of a similar acreage of tillable land in ten, fifteen,
or twenty years.
But once in possession of a tract of land, the German tended to hold
on, through good years and bad years, as if his farm were the one
piece of land in the world for him and his. The Yankee, already given
to change in the East, tended in the West, under the stimulus of
machine-aided wheat culture, to regard land lightly, and to abandon one
tract for another on the principle that the supply was inexhaustible
and that one social environment was apt to be as satisfactory as
another. He had before him the great wheat plains, the Pacific coast,
the inland empire and the parks of the Rocky Mountains. Latterly
his range has widened to include the plains of the Assiniboin, the
Saskatchewan, and Peace River. For more than half a century he was
free to roam, to pick and choose land even as he picked and chose in
southern Wisconsin--the slower, more cautious, or more timid German
buying his farm when he was ready to sell.
It was peaceful penetration, involving no sabre rattling but much
canny bargaining, sober casting up of accounts, and cheerful jingling
of specie. The Yankees, more speculative to the last, more imaginative
and space-free, pressed ever toward the borders of the primitive, drawn
by the same lure of wealth quickly and easily acquired which brought
so many of them to the prairies of Wisconsin in the earlier days. The
Germans, fearing distance more than debt, confident in their ability
to make grain crops grow and farm stock fatten if only they had a sure
market for cattle and for crops, remained behind to till the abandoned
fields and occupy the deserted homes. Thus, so far as Wisconsin’s
farming areas are concerned, the shadow of the Yankee has grown less in
the land, while the tribe of the Teuton has increased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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