Page:The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin.djvu/45

 by all farmers, was one of the means finally relied on by the wheat farmers to restore the productivity of their abused soils.

In ways such as the above, German farmers helped to save Wisconsin agriculture in the period of stress when wheat growing failed and before coöperative dairying entered. They were not the chief influence in popularizing improved livestock. Credit for that innovation must be awarded to the Yankees. They had resumed in the eastern states the English tradition of breeding, and brought it into Wisconsin where, by means of state and county fairs and an active agricultural press, it was ultimately borne in upon the minds of all farmers, Germans among the rest.

Neither did the Germans lead in developing the new agriculture, of which coöperative dairying was the keystone. Yankee leadership therein, too, was the dominant influence. Yet, it was the Germans, Scandinavians, and other foreigners—and numerically Germans were in the majority—who, by virtue of their agricultural morale, their steadiness in carrying out plans, their patience and perseverance, have made the dairy business of Wisconsin the great industry it has become.

Above all, the Germans persisted as farmers. They prospered not dramatically, like some of the more successful of the Yankee farmers, but by little and little they saved money, bought more land, better stock, and built better homes. When Yankee farmers, discouraged or impoverished by the failure of wheat, offered their farms for sale preparatory to "going west," Germans who had managed their smaller farms more carefully stood ready to buy; when Yankees who were tired of being "tied to a cow" wanted to go to Montana, Oregon, or Wyoming to raise steers by wholesale, on the ranching plan, they sold out to Germans who made the dairy farms pay larger dividends year by