THE STORY OF A COLONY FOR EPILEPTICS. 667 



that is wasted. It must not be forgotten that a number of the 

 people employed, even the most skilled among them, are at times 

 quite irresponsible for their actions. A man may do good steady 

 work for months, and then, for some inexplicable reason, sud- 

 denly seize the coat he is sewing or the book he is binding and 

 tear it into atoms. Work done under such conditions can never 

 be lucrative. But although financially the workshops are a fail- 

 ure, in every other respect they are a decided success. They give 

 variety and interest to life in the colony, and they have indirectly 

 a most beneficial effect upon the morale of the patients, many of 

 whom have become much more alert and mentally vigorous since 

 they have been working at their old trades. 



Agriculture, however, is, and always must be, the staple in- 

 dustry of the colony ; and as agriculturists these epileptics are 

 certainly doing good work — work, too, which from year to year 

 tends to become more productive. They have already cleared 

 and brought to a state of high cultivation much of the land they 

 possess in the forest, and they have completely transformed the 

 great Senne. Until they took it in hand this marshy common 

 produced nothing but thistles and heather ; now it yields fairly 

 good crops of barley, oats, and potatoes. Parts of it have even 

 been turned — and with the best results — into vegetable gardens, 

 flower gardens, and fruit orchards. Market gardening is un- 

 doubtedly the most profitable industry carried on in the colony. 

 It is, too, the calling for which the majority of male epileptic 

 patients show the most marked preference. Men who are dead to 

 all other emotions seem to derive intense delight from their own 

 special allotments. They will work in them from morning until 

 night, and there is neither bound nor limit to the care they 

 bestow on them. They watch over their plants and seedlings 

 with infinite tenderness, and talk about their early vegetables 

 and first strawberries with enthusiasm. The crops they obtain 

 are surprisingly good considering the soil they have to deal with. 

 Not only do they supply the entire colony with the fruit and 

 vegetables it requires, but they carry on a thriving trade with 

 the manufacturing towns in the neighborhood. For fifty miles 

 around the fruit and the flowers raised in the Bethel hothouses 

 are in great request. In connection with the flower garden, a 

 large building is set aside for drying seeds and storing bulbs, a 

 most profitable undertaking. The colonists, in addition to rais- 

 ing their own vegetables, grow their own corn, feed their own 

 cattle, and make their own butter and cheese. Their well-stocked 

 farms are most delightful places, and the dairies attached to them 

 are perfect models of what dairies should be. 



One of the most difficult tasks which fall to the lot of the 

 managers of Bethel is that of providing suitable occupation for 



