The German, on the other hand, in order to subdue his land to the requirements of successful tillage, must attack with ax, mattock, and firebrand each successive acre, patiently slashing and burning, hewing and delving, till by dint of unremitting toil extended over an indefinite number of years his farm became “cleared.” Shall we therefore repeat, as the sober verdict of history, the statement often heard, that in settling this new country the Yankee showed a preference for open land, the German for woodland? On the face of the census returns that seems to be the case, and if our evidence were limited to the census such a conclusion would be well nigh inescapable. Fortunately, he who deals with culture history problems of the American West has this advantage over the Greenes and the Lamprechts of Europe, that on such matters his evidence is minutely particular, while theirs is general to the point of vagueness. No one will doubt that the Yankee staked his claim in the open lands because he preferred those lands on account of the ease with which a farm could be made. The question is, whether the German’s presence in the woods rather than in the openings or on the prairies was with him a matter of preference so far as land selection in itself was concerned. Timber for shelter, fuel, building, and fencing was an important consideration to all settlers, including the Yankees. In another connection I have shown, from the records of land entries, that the Yankee settlers in a prevailingly prairie township of Racine County took up first every acre of forested land, together with the prairie lands and marsh lands adjoining the woods, while they shunned for some years the big, open, unsheltered prairie where farms would be out of immediate touch with woods.[3] Rather than take treeless lands near the lake shore, these settlers preferred to go farther inland where inviting combinations of groves, meadows, and dry prairie lands, or openings, could still be found in the public domain. Only gradually did American settlers overcome their natural repugnance to a shelterless, timberless farm home--a repugnance justified by common sense, but springing from the habit of generations. When, for economic reasons, they began to settle on the open prairies, the planting of quick-growing trees about the farmsteads was always esteemed a work of fundamental utility.