505 



decoration of the Legion of Honor; and later, an award of the great 

 gold medal of the Societe Centrale (V Agriculture de France, which t 

 the same time awarded silver medals to Messienrs Dansset, Gruet, and 

 Luchot, metayers of Theueuille, for the part in the improvement taken 

 by the metayers. 



The triumph of M. Bignon over the prejudices of the laborers, and 

 his ultimate success in achieving as great improvement in the men as 

 in the land, is thus recorded by M. Borie, in his official report of the 

 inception and history of this enterprise: 



M. Bignon desired that the demonstration should be complete and that the trans- 

 formation which he had conceived should influence men as well as things. Men were 

 also transformed. We have spoken with heads of families, malevolent witnesses of the 

 first essays of the proprietor ; they loyally confessed their error, and blessed him who 

 had made them what they were. The misery of the metayers of 1849, which they have 

 not forgotten, has disappeared from the domestic hearths. The debts (they had been 

 able to go in debt) have been paid for many years ; their savings have accumulated ; 

 metayers have become proprietors ; they own domains worth from 20,000 to 30,000 

 francs ; they have metayers under them whom they are educating iu turn. 



The families, by God's blessing, are augmented, but labor has increased with the 

 number of children. Everybody can find, iu the domain, occupation, and occupation 

 profitable to the community. Thus at Theneuille, there is no such question as emi- 

 gration, nor lack of hands. Labor does not fail and workmen are not lacking for labor. 

 Here is one of the capital conseqiiences of the work, essentially social, of M. Bignon. 

 By association, intelligent, complete, devoted, on the part of the proprietor and his 

 metayers, misery may be forever banished from our rural districts; the products of our 

 soil may be multiplied ; union subsists between capital and labor, a union sincere, com- 

 plete, which becomes profitable to the whole country. 



Is such association practicable ? The testimony of Theneuille, the example of the 

 other group of farms, which M. Bignon is engaged in constituting upon the same basis, 

 proves in an irrefutable manner how easy that association is when the proprietor de- 

 sires to make it so. The example of Theneuille shows that such association is not only 

 practicable, but that it is profitable to the proprietor who knows how to take the initia- 

 tive, and to the metayer who supports it. This example, finally, shows that an associ- 

 ation upon this equitable basis is durable by the sole will of the contracting, parties 

 for at Theneuille there are neither contracts nor bonds nor engagement of any sort. 



A CO-OPERATIVE FARM IN ENGLAND, — In 1830 a large land-propri- 

 etor, named Gurdou, in Assington, Suffolk County, undertook the project 

 of founding an association for co-operative farming. Inviting a few 

 farm-laborers to meet him, he offered them jointly, at moderate rent, a 

 farm of 60 acres and the use of £400, without interest, for ten years, 

 on the condition that each member of the contemplated association pay 

 into its treasury a fee of £3, (this fee was designed principally as a 

 guarantee of good faith,) with the proviso that the farm should be man- 

 aged by one of their number at fixed wages; the remaining members 

 were to be at liberty to continue in the service of their old employers. 

 Though this scheme involved little risk and the advantage of capital 

 without interest, its author found laborers who had been always trained 

 to rely exclusively upon wages for income reluctant to enter upon it. 

 But a beginning was made, and, at the end of ten years, the association 

 had accumulated, beyond what was needed for current expenses, 

 enough to repay Mr. Gurdon the capital he had advanced. Fifteen 

 years later they rented from the same patron 65 acres more, making 133 

 in all, to which 8 have since been added. The greater part of the addi- 

 tional outlay this involved was met by their surplus earnings, and the 

 remainder by money borrowed at 2 J per cent. With this enlargement 

 of land the number of members was increased from 15 to 20, and these 

 limits of land and members continue up to the present day. The largest 

 portion of the members continue to work for wages in the service of 

 employers. A manager, with seven or eight hired hands, carries on the 

 co-operative farm. The wife of the manager cares for the dairy prod- 



