62 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



one thousand and eighty dollars, was worth from five thousand 

 to ten thousand dollars, — say an average of seven thousand five 

 hundred. They had lived well, and had enjoyed all the 

 advantages of society. 



They grumbled ! And Mr. Hansen said he Tvould rather 

 starve than conduct such another enterprise ! I think there 

 are places in New England where such communities would do 

 well. 



But the advantages of cooperation may be reached to a 

 much greater extent than they now are. The Granger move- 

 ment — so far as it secured concert of action among farmers 

 for their work and profit — was a move in the right direc- 

 tion. We have made progress in farming and in farm-life 

 in many respects, but many of the pleasant incidentals of 

 farm-life have passed away. 



Poverty made our fiithers mutual helpers. And the want 

 of facilities for travel made them apt to seek social enjoyment 

 in the neighborhood. They borrowed and lent. They 

 "changed works," and the young men of one farm hired out 

 with neighbors for haying or hoeing or harvesting, and the 

 daughters went to work in other families where there were 

 sons instead of daughters, and often remained there as wives. 

 The good farmer could not husk his corn without calling 

 together all his neighbors, old and young, to fill his barn 

 with merry laughter and eat the baked beans and pumpkin 

 pies of the good housewife. And she, in turn, must have 

 her "apple-bee," where work and fun and frolic made scenes 

 that we old fellows remember as the poetry of the rough 

 farm-life of forty years ago. There was at that time a vast 

 deal of rustic cooperation that was helpful, and which, best 

 of all, favored social life, — pleasure in the neighborhood, — 

 which none of the parties and calls of fashionable life can 

 compensate for. 



Much of all this has passed away, perhaps no more to 

 return, though I hope to see some of it again, as open fire- 

 places are once more sending up their cheerful blaze for 

 family gatherings, and the old brass candlesticks are once 

 more finding their place on Ihe mantel-piece. 



But there are more important matters now in which cooper- 

 ation mio-ht be carried much farther than it is. 



