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Many parts of Missouri, however, do not recommend themselves to the 
immigrant because, however many advantages they offer in other 
respects, they suffer for want of water.

Chariton County is rich in water. It is bounded on the west by the 
Grand River, on the south by the Missouri River, and its eastern part 
is watered by the Chariton River with its many tributary streams. 
There are few counties in the state in which drainage can be effected 
with such great facility as here. Unfortunately this has been disregarded 
up until now, which of course is to be ascribed entirely to the old 
slave regime and the slack routine of traditional Missouri land management. 
Only a few somewhat intelligent German landlords,who are sensible enough 
not to let themselves fall prey to the unfortunately easily contaminating 
craze to own large tracts of land, but cultivate their few 
acres carefully and well, have achieved outstanding success.

The number of inhabitants in the county is approximately 19,000, 
which includes no fewer than 4000 Germans.

Brunswick, the county's main town and most promising city of the future,
thanks to its position on the Missouri River as well as on the west 
branch of the Northern Missouri Railroad, is home to half of these German 
inhabitants.

It is a well-known fact that the German abroad, when he is isolated, relin­
quishes his identity more easily that does the descendant of any other 
nation. His great talent for assimilation, which, to be sure, has raised 
Germany as an entity to its present high cutural level, leads him soon to 
forget his Germanness when he does not come into daily contact with his 
countrymen; and, just as the immigrant, like many of that sort (even many 
educated Germans), has to turn his attention as soon as he comes into the 
country towards de-Germanizing himself as quickly as possible in order all 
the quicker to become Americanized, it is also a somewhat established fact 
that, even in this regard, moderation is best and that, while one 
adapts himself in business relationships to the American head for 
business, he remains a German in social relationships. Those who, from 
the outset and per force, want to become Americanized, usually do not 
get far with it. In our county now, the German settler has the 
incalculable advantage of German neighbors. While Germans are spread 
throughout the whole county, there are three principal colonies where 
the immigrant may encounter countrymen of every degree of education [who] 
will accept him with open arms.

There may be many counties in the state that promise even as great and, 
perhaps, even greater material advantages, but the newly-arrived, 
ignorant of the customs and norms of the country, is advised to settle 
down there where he finds German countrymen who [will] give him a helping 



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hand with counsel and deed and help him to get past the first difficulties 
of settling in. To be sure, there is no longer an administrative district 
in our county from which, as in the wilderness of the Far West, a head of 
a family can acquire a quarter section (or 160 acres) for the low price, 
guaranteed by the government, of $20; but were this still to be had, would 
it not even so be advisable for the newcomer to begin his agricultural 
occupation on such terrain? Only he who himself has experienced them can 
appreciate the thousands of difficulties and sacrifices that accompany 
such an undertaking.

Having now outlined the merits of Chariton County in general, we want to 
touch on them more in particular, and, where it is advisable, to cite 
specifics which in the final analysis are the most authoritative arguments.

The county contains three types of soil. The so-called "bottom land" that 
stretches along the Missouri River, which can boldy take its place alongside 
the best soil in the world in that latitude where fertility is concerned. 
Somewhat further away from the river and running parallel to it is the 
"bluff" or "hill land", and further still comes "prairie land."

That melons are sometimes raised on the bottom land that weigh up to 
thirty pounds, and pumpkins [that weigh] up to eighty pounds; that maize 
often reaches a height of sixteen feet; and that one finds turnips that 
are eight inches in diameter, are facts that prove the extraordinary 
fertility more emphatically and more manifestly than whole pages of 
arguments. No farmer thinks about the tedious yet, in other parts of 
the country, necessary process of fertilizing. Land that has been 
under cultivation for 10-20 years already often shows no trace of a 
decline in productivity.

We give trustworthy statistics concerning some of the principal crops In
the following:
	Hay,tonsperacre	2-3
	Wheat,bushels*	30
	Oats,bushels		40
	Maize,bushels	80-100
	Potatoes, bushels	200
	Tobacco,pounds	1200
	Hemp, pounds		1500

These statistics, which hold strictly to the truth, demonstrate 
sufficiently the sort of productivity that the soil is capable 
of and to what even greater expectations one is entitled if, 
just for once, the present primitive agriculture would be given 
over to a rational and scientific system.

* One bushel = 8 3/4 Prussian Metzen




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Above all else, a great future is at hand for the cultivation 
of wheat. Most of the farmers who earlier devoted their land 
to tobacco have turned away from that, preferring the :Steadily 
requested and hard-cash producing wheat to the risky cultivation 
of tobacco. There are farmers in the county who already have 
harvested up to fifty bushels per acre; but these are exceptions 
and more the result of extraordinarily propitious circumstances. 
(Henry Gratjohn 1867.)
If, however, we ever come to the time [when] a more systematic agri
­culture is promoted, then it would be an easy thing to turn everyone 
of those quantities into an average. In order to do this, however, 
we need immigration, and that preferably from Germany. We need hard-
working hands to join with us in order to make the richness of the 
soil productive.

It would be too wide-ranging to list all of the agricultural products 
in a row and to deal with [them] thoroughly; we want to touch briefly 
on only a few [of them]. Few farmers have devoted themselves to the 
cultivation of flax, despite the promising experiments that have been 
made now and again by some. One acre produces between fifteen and 
twenty bushels of flax seed, or, when flax and barley are sown 
together, which often occurs, since God extends Gambrinus's realm 
ever more, even in the West, so that one can harvest from ten to fifteen 
bushels of flax seed and from 16-20 bushels of barley.

Sugar beets also, like Chinese sweet corn, will in time become one of 
our principal products. The tests that have been made have turned out 
brilliantly, quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The sugar beets 
that have been grown in our county are not inferior in the least to the 
European, while they surpass the latter significantly in quantity per 
equivalent ground surface.

And our land is suitable not only for the growing of beets and sugar corn, 
but also for processing the same in the county; the erection of a sugar 
plant would have the best success, not only on account of favorable 
lines of trans­portation-river and railway-, but also because of the 
favorable climatic location.

Cultivation of fruit can be carried on very advantageously and with al­
most undoubtable prospects for abundant profit. Climate and soil are 
as if created for this. A fruit orchard, properly planted, would make 
a wealthy man of its owner in the shortest time. Along with the ease 
and negligible cost with which one can engage in this branch of 
agriculture is also (and especially) to be counted the rapidity with 
which trees reach their maximum productivity and the relatively long 
duration that applies to those conditions. Apple trees, for example, 
become productive at least four years earlier than in Germany and 
remain so, circumstances allowing, for twenty-five up to fifty years. 
How profitable a fruit orchard is when properly maintained is 
illustrated in the following minimum calculation.



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We want to take the average return from one apple tree at only two 
barrels (10 bushels). The average price per barrel is 21/2 dollars. 
One can usually plant forty trees on one  cre of land. This, then, 
would come to the pretty sum of two hundred dollars per acre per year. 
And for that, as said, the outlay is neglible, the necessary work 
insignificant, and the profit almost certain, because the apple harvest 
almost never goes amiss.
With good cultivation and quite special attentiveness, the above 
figures can easily be doubled. The cultivation of peaches is also 
a lucrative business and is in no way second to that of other kinds 
of fruit.

The bluff and hill districts provide an extremely productive field 
for vintners. Until a few years ago, viniculture was considered a very 
secondary branch of agriculture in western America. Since, however, German 
influence has asserted itself more and more and Americans themselves have 
seen that an expanded cultivation of grapes is the most effective 
instrument for wiping out alcoholism, even the so-called "cold water" 
American and tee-totaler has recognized the vanity and ineffectiveness 
of the temperance and anti-alcohol movement [and the] cultivation of 
wine-grapes in Missouri has risen to a significant height and is 
obviously set to make up one of the principal sources of wealth in the 
state.

Some vineyards already exist in the county and their proprietors are 
more than satisfied with the success that they have since achieved.
Apart from the [fact] that the land is extraordinarily cheap, it 
possesses all the qualities that are necessary for a good quality 
of grape. It is warm, frangible, dry, rich in alkaline-potash, soda, 
lime, and magnesium. To be sure, the changes of weather here are, in 
general, more sudden and the contrasts sharper than in the wine 
regions of Germany; but experience teaches that this exerts no or 
only very little influence on the thriving of grapes. Randohar and 
Kabul, for example, produce the best grapes in the world, and yet 
nowhere does one perhaps find so strong a contrast between the 
searing heat of the day and the severe cold of the nights as right 
there. That our county is an excellent locale for viniculture can a
lso be corroborated by the circumstance that in places where the hoe 
and plow have not yet been employed, wild, native vines grow to 
astonishing size and in abundance.

The following cost accounting will give an idea of the advantages 
and profits from viniculture.

The total expenses of a vineyard-cultivating the soil, vines, pruning 
the stocks, everything included, until it reaches full productivity 
may perhaps amount to $200 per acre, the annual costs for maintenance 
$50, ten percent interest on the initial costs make $20; consequently, 
the total outlay for every year amounts to $70 per acre. A yearly 
income, therefore, of $70 from each acre would pay the interest for 



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the first costs and the outlay for cultivation. Now, however, one 
derives on the average at least 250 gallons of wine from one acre, 
which is sold for the lowest average price of $1.60, producing a 
yearly income of $400 and, therefore, realizes a net profit of $300. 
This account is reckoned as modestly as possible and most of our 
vintners have achieved much more gratifying results. When viniculture 
is properly managed, then one can realize a net profit of $500 from 
one acre with 400 gallons.

The advantages that can be earned from viniculture in our area, 
according to this sanguine calculation, are too clearly obvious 
to require further argument. What we need, simply, are people 
who are knowledgeable vintners and who possess a little capital. 
And even if this last should not be at hand, vintners are 
nonetheless welcome to us. The majority of our citizens 
who own vineyards, would hand out land under acceptable 
conditions for this purpose, if only to encourage the 
prosperity of the county.

Whoever settles on prairie land has the advantage in that 
tilling the land is markedly easier and quicker than in the 
bottom land, provided, of course, that one wants to buy 
uncultivated land. There are examples enough of farmers 
who paid off their entire land with their first wheat harvest,
 and the scarcity of wood can easily be remedied on the prairie. 
It does not take by far so many years to raise a good forest as 
one perhaps supposes who is unacquainted with the fertility of 
our land and the swiftness with which certain kinds of trees 
grow. If one has, up to now, thought but little about planting 
wood in a land which until recently has been blessed with a 
superabundance of it, then the necessity to do so will become 
acquainted with it in a few years. There are boundless forests 
in our state, to be sure; but their misuse (and waste) is also 
boundless. And since, up to now, no one has given any thought 
to a regulated forestry, our descendants stand to be the losers 
from that misuse. In order to remedy and to prevent the scarcity 
of wood now, it is advisable that the settler take this important 
step right from the beginning. The benefits of such an undertaking 
are more than one. Aside [from the fact] that a pretty woods 
significantly beautifies his farm and raises its value in like 
degree, the farmer can support his livestock better and more 
cheaply [with it].

Cattle breeding pays off handsomely on prairie land [and] scarcely 
calls for supervision. Costs are almost negligible in the raising 
of cattle, and of little account in the work [involved]. The prairie, 
so long as it is not fenced in, is everyone's property, and everyone's 
cattle can graze on it. When hay is harvested, one reaps what is needed 
by way of winter fodder, which is very slight for the most part, 
since our mild climate allows the cattle to fend for themselves 
throughout most of the winter.