Dezember 1845
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Americans lead a lazy, idle life; they don't want, to put their hand to work and bend to live only from what nature itself offers them without their help. Yet he does not live badly in this manner; he eats meat three times a day, which his herd offers abundantly without the least effort. His hugs multiply exceedingly and nourish and care for themselves winter and summer. His cows, along with their calves, also remain in a fenced area in the open through the night during the winter. The ground which he plants, for the cultivating of which he uses some Negro slaves, yields him abundantly; so he leads the life of a patriarch without effort and worry. He knows of no luxury, of no coach and stately carriage; for not only he, but also his wife, mount a horse when they want to visit a distant friend or attend a dance entertainment, which the American likes very much, in the nearby places. Upon viewing the splendid rich ground which presents itself in its primeval wilderness, in immeasurable expanse to the eyes of the observers, and is of no other use to the owner except that it serves as pasture for his herds, the heart bleeds when as far as the eye reaches toward east and west, toward north and south, it sees nothing but an immeasurable level expanse standing in high grass on which the horizon seems to rest, only sparsely inhabited with solitary herds and with innumerable flocks of deer and other animals. Oh, how fortunate the Europeans, who are pressed; together in a narrow space in the homeland, would consider themselves to be if they were allowed to occupy and till the endless wilderness of grass; these plains of grass which contain the grandest wheatland which would cost so little strain and effort to put into cultivation and still would yield the most magnificent returns!-Since only grass and all kinds of weeds grow on the prairies, but are otherwise free of every kind of wood, they can be made tillable in a very easy manner. The grass of such a surface only need be set fire to and burned off during the winter when it is died away and dry, then broken with a plow, wherefore, only a slight effort is needed as for the breaking of acreage which has laid fallow in Europe |
