Our “Dutch” use a freedom of language that is not known to the English, and which to them savors of coarseness. “But they mean no harm by it,” says one of my English friends. It is difficult to practise reserve where the whole family sit in one heated room. This rich limestone land in which the “Dutch” delight is nearly level to an eye trained among the hills. Do hills make a people more poetical or imaginative?
Perhaps so; but there is vulgarity too among the hills.
The foregoing article was written about fourteen years ago, and appeared (with perhaps some small changes) in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1869. It was published in the first edition of this work in 1872, and in the second edition in 1874. Many of the alterations which were made in one or both of these editions are now removed to the [Appendix], where will also be found additional matter on similar subjects.
The passage of over twelve years has considerably changed the neighborhood in which I live. The greatest differences are the rise in the value of land; the division into smaller farms; the general introduction of the culture of tobacco; and the change in the population by the coming in of a larger number of that plainest sect of Mennonites, called Amish.
As regards the rise in the value of land, it is doubtless in part apparent only, from the greater amount of money at this time. I have spoken of one who said, “Well, Seth, it seems as if you Dutch folks had determined to root us English out; but thee had to pay pretty dear for thy root this time.” The farm alluded to was sold about 1855, and brought less than one hundred and sixty-three dollars per acre,—there being one hundred and ten acres. It has since been divided, and eighty acres, now a very large farm here, with the newer farm buildings, it is supposed would now bring over two hundred and fifty dollars. Small properties sell much higher in proportion. I hear of twenty acres, with fair farm buildings, having sold last fall for nine thousand dollars.
The division into smaller farms is caused in a great measure by the Amish increasing and dividing properties among their children, so that farms are running as low, in many cases, as from twenty-five down to ten acres. It is rare for the Amish to remain unmarried. The owners of such small properties cannot afford to hire help; the Amish help one another, and are willing to help others also. Many acts of neighborly kindness are exchanged here, even to giving a sick neighbor several days’ work in the harvest-field.
Tobacco was cultivated to profit long ago on farms and islands lying on the Susquehanna; but one of the consequences of the civil war was to make the cultivation of the weed more general here, and the immense sums obtained for fine crops have also kept up the value of this land.