There were, of course, many farmers and farms in the region indicated and in other contributory regions, which were not so widely different from the average of those in America. Yet, on the whole, it can be said that the German husbandman, in training and habit, was analogous to our modern truck farmer or orchardist, rather than to our general farmer. He was a specialist in soils, in fertilizing and preparing them for different crops, in planting, stirring, weeding, irrigating; in defending plants against insect pests, seasonal irregularities, and soil peculiarities; he throve by hoeing, dragging, trimming, pruning, sprouting; by curing and conserving plants, roots, grasses, grains, and fruits. His livestock economy was incidental, yet very important. It supplied the necessary fertilizer to maintain soil productivity; it afforded milk, beef, pork, butter, cheese, wool. It gave him his draft animals, often cows instead of oxen, and economized every bit of grass and forage which his situation produced. Improvement of livestock appears to have affected southwestern Germany prior to 1850 very little as compared with the pastoral countries of England, Holland, Friesland, and north Germany. The animals kept by the village farmers were therefore not remarkable for quality. But they were usually well housed, and the feed and care they received made up in considerable measure for the absence of superior blood. The various states of Germany, by 1840, were maintaining schools of agriculture, a species of experiment stations for the dissemination of such scientific agricultural information as was then available. To some extent, therefore, farming was beginning to be scientific. But, prevailingly it was intensely practical, the appropriate art connected with the growing of every distinct crop being handed on from father to son, from farmer to laborer. One could almost predict how farmers thus trained would react to the new environment of the Wisconsin wilderness. Taking up a tract of forested land or buying a farm with a small clearing upon it, their impulse would be, with the least possible delay, to get a few acres thoroughly cleared, subdued to the plow, and in a high state of tilth. Exceptions there were, to be sure, but on the whole the German pioneers were not content to slash and burn their timber. After the timber was off, the stumps must come out, forthwith, to make the tract fit for decent cultivation. Was it the Germans who introduced in land clearing the custom of “grubbing” instead of “slashing”? This meant felling the tree by undermining it, chopping off roots underground at a safe depth, taking out grub and all, instead of cutting it off above ground. In timber of moderate growth this practice proved fairly expeditious and highly successful, for once a tract was grubbed, the breaking plow encountered no serious obstruction. A good “grubber” among later immigrants could always count on getting jobs from established German farmers.[20]