but he seems to have got into trouble during a military exercise in Heilbroon. He went to Pennsylvania and as a beer brewer he found work in a brewery in Overton. There he made coke for the brewery, apparently the first coke in the district of Westmoreland, a district which is now leading in coke production. From the money he earned plus the money he inherited from his father he bought 400 acres of land from the government, mostly wood and extremely remote. Even twenty years later, when his nephew Julius visited him, it took three hours with a coach to get from the nearest train station Lycippus to the farm. Being extremely diligent he succeeded with the help of his wife and two of her sisters to make the land clear and to build a nice home for his family.

It is a pleasure to read the' letters, which he wrote to his youngest brother between 1865 and 1895. They show what a strong character he was and they also tell a lot about the miseries and pleasures of a farmer. His greatest wish was to visit Germany again and if there had been oil or coal on his land, as had been the case in the neighborhood, the first thing he would have done with the money is to buy the passage to Germany. He was not lucky though. Later his son August found coal on one of his farms and got quite a sum of money for it.

Christian was no adventurer who hoped for his luck, but knew that he had to so hard work to get ahead. Again and again he asked his brother Georg in Weinsberg for advice concerning farming. Georg also sent him some trees and tendrils+.

+ vining plants (CFH)