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.[1]
To the American, who was content to plow around his stumps every year for a decade, to cultivate around them, cradle or reap around them, it seemed that his German
- ↑ In southwestern Wisconsin, about 1870, a respectable German farmer announced to his relatives the marriage of his daughter to a man who had arrived but recently and had the status of a mere laborer. To parry all questions about the suitability of the groom, who was known to be addicted to liquor and other vices, the farmer added: "I'm very willing to give him my daughter, for he is the best 'grubber' I've ever had on my farm."
