And there was timber enough on his eighty to be worth $30,000 in the home town of Elberfelt. Of this, he would gladly make his friends in Germany a present of about $20,000 worth!
The question of nearness to market was a determinant also in the cases of Germans who were well enough off to take open lands. William Dames found, for himself and associates, a favorable tract near Ripon. It contained 160 acres prairie, 320 acres openings, and 160 acres of low prairie or meadow land. The advantages of that neighborhood, he wrote, were these: first, the prospectively near market, by way of the Fox River Canal to be completed the following spring; second, the excellence of the soil; third, the ease with which the land could be made into productive farms. There one need not subject himself to the murderous toil incident to farm making in the woods. And, fourth, the healthfulness of the climate and the superb drinking water.
One bit of information which Dames conveyed to his fellow Germans who were contemplating immigration to Wisconsin, was that the Yankees (by which term he described all native Americans) and the Scotch settlers of that neighborhood were becoming eager to sell their partly improved farms, preparatory to moving into the newer region north of Fox River. He advised Germans able to do so to buy such farms, which were to be had in plenty not only in Fond du Lac County but near Watertown, near Delafield, and even near Milwaukee—prices varying with the improvements, nearness to the city, etc. He seemed to think the Germans but ill adapted to pioneering. Let the German immigrant, he said, buy a partly cleared farm; then he could follow his calling in ways to which he was accustomed. Moreover, since such farms produced fairly well even under the indifferent treatment accorded them by the Yankee farmers, the German farmer need have no fear of failure.
