MIDDLE WESTERN AGRICULTURAL, HISTORY 319 



agriculture and rural life is also part ol' tiiis sul)jccl. Althuuf^^h 

 tliere are many valuable studies on the eliief immigrant groups, 

 one still lacks specific treatments of the actual adjustments by 

 which they became Ameriaui farmers and of their ultimate and 

 distinctive contributions.'* As examples of the latter, one may 

 cite the nexus of the Swiss to the early history of the cheese in- 

 dustry in Wisconsin, the Danes to cooperative creameries in 

 Minnesota, and the Qerman-Kussians to hard winter wheat in 

 Kansas.'* 



Although the general history of the policies by which the land 

 constituting the Middle West passed from tlie federal govern- 

 ment to individual owners is available in B. II. Ilibbard's volume 

 and in the monographs by P. J. Treat, R. (}. Wellington, and G. 

 M. Stephenson, there is still ample opportunity and need for clar- 

 ification of the details.'" For several years Roy M. Robbins and 

 Henry Tatter have been working in this direction.*" The policies 

 pursued by the states in the dis])osition of the lands granted to 

 them by the federal government are also important. However, 

 the enacted policies are not the entire story, and the processes 



IS In some instances, a group niay have adopted American ways of making a 

 living and economic organizsttion so quickly that there is little to say and nothing of 

 significance concerning .idjustmentB. Tliis is true of tiie Swedes, for example. 



»« John Q. Emery, "The Swiss Cheese Industry in Wisconsin," Wisconsin Mag<^ 

 tmt of Htrtory, X (1926), 42-52; Glenn T. Trewartlia, "The Green County, Wi» 

 eonain, Foreign Clieese Industry," Economic Geography (Worcester), II (1926), 292- 

 308, e«p, 296 297; Thomas P. Cliristensen, "Danish Settlement in Minnesota," Min- 

 nesota History (St. Paul), VIII (1927), 363 385, for scattered paragraphs on dairy- 

 ing among Danish settlers in Minnesota. The present w^riter surmises a nexus between 

 the early cooperative creameries in MinnesoUt and the quickening of national con- 

 aciousneits in Denmark following tlie loss of Sdileswig-HoLstein in 1864. Hugh P. 

 Coultis, "The Introduction and Development of Hard Red Winter Wheat in Kan- 

 «u," Kanu« State Board of Agriculture, Bimnial Report, XV (1905-1906), 945-948. 



>• Benjamin H. Hibhard, A Uiatory of thr Public Land Polioiea (New York, 

 1924); Payson J. Treat. The Xational IxinA Sygtrm, 17S51SSO (New York, 1910); 

 Bajnor (J. Wellington, The Political and Sectiinutl Infliunce of the Public I.an*ls, ISSS- 

 184S (Cambridge, iyi4) ; George M. Stephenson, Pulittcal Ilijstury of the Public Lands, 

 1840 to JSCi (Boston, 1917). 



Per additional references, see Edwards, "Bibliography of the History of Agri- 

 culture in the United Stat«a," 50-59. An extensive unpublished bibliography on the 

 land policies of the United States is aUo available for consultation in the writer'* 

 ofBce in the United States Department of Agriculture. 



>• Roy M. Robbins, "Horace (irt^eley: LaJid lU-forin and Unemployment, 1837- 

 1862," Agricultural Ilistury, VII (ly3.1), 18 41, and id., " Pre«imption — A Fron- 

 tier Triumph," MiKHiHMipn Valley HiKTOiurAL RsnEw, XVIII (1931), 331-349. 



