Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-05-04
GERMAN SUCCESS AND AMERICAN



The ST.. Louis Republican recently pub
lished some facts in connection with farming
in the State Of Missouri that are worth the
attention of our Southern sgriculturists, for
they show who are the people and what are
the methods by which the average farmer 10
twenty years ago the Manchester road,
which penetrales ST.. Louis county to dis
lance OF nearly twenty miles from the city
of ST. Louis, was inh sbited on both sides al
most exclusively Is Americans. To-day
nearly the whole of the farms on each eide
Germans. On nearly all the great roads of
the county similar change has taken place,
and now probably two-thirds of the farms of
the county have German owners. In many of
the beat counties Of the State similar
process is going on. Ia Franklin, st.
Charles, Montgomery, Lafayette and War
rem, the German farmers have the prsdomi-
nance. In Galloway, Cooper, Perry, Carroll
and ,Ste. Genevieve they are increasing,
and in some of them are already in the ma
jority. That in certain parts of the West
the Germans should predominate is natural
from their numbers, but the fact here pointed
out is that of those people becoming the ma
iority in parts OF the State first settled, and
largely occupied and owned, by persons Of
American birth. That over a vast territory
q large macs Of Americans should retire
from lands about the excellence of which
there is no complaint, and Europeans should
succeed and prosper where they have
not done sufficiently we'll to retain
their lands, is remarkable result.
1t is evident that the Germans, to
succeed where Americans have failed, must
have some qualities of which their prede-
cessors were deficient, be free of some faults
or failings with which the Americans had
been troubled. Could our Southern farmers
catch these favorable German characteristics
it is evident they would meet also with their
success. Ii appears, in the first place, that
the Germans hold farms OF less extent than
those who formerly held them-they grow
more on less ground. They do not pillow
twenty acres for a crop they can raise on
cultivate is cultivated well-all is got out
of it that it can render, but it is not exhaust
ed. The German never produces sworn out"
land, but he often makes such land pro-
ductiye. A farm of moderate size, well
titled, ia the first step TO the Ger
mans success, and that is a lesson We
in the South cannot learn too we'll nor too
soon. The German loves hi. farm, is proud
of it, and loving it he cannot bear 10 see it
look unlidy and neglected. We, ourselves,
have seen some Of the German farms in
Perry county, No, and seeing them We do
not wonder at their ewners' regard for them
and pride in them. Neatness il their great
feature. There are no fence corners flied
with briars; no line OF weeds aud brush all
along the fence line. Such growth means
the scattering of the seeds produced over the
plowed and pasture lands; and that, the Ger
man farmer well knows, does not pay. The
neatness OF his grounds is not a matter for its
own sake, as a mere show; substantial and
monetary reasons guide the wise hand
whose directing head has the knowledge a
long line of ancestry has gained for it. The
grass land is clear Of weeds and is an even,
thick growing mass of green. The Law is
that no weed springing up among 1t must be
allowed to come 70 seed. With = spade-a