CO-OPEEATION IN FAEMING. 253 



bining his efforts with those of his neighbors. He 

 would perceive that the common wants of a hundred 

 may be supplied by a combined effort at less than 

 half the cost of satisfying them when each is pro- 

 vided for alone. He would grow year by year into 

 a clearer and firmer conviction that short-sighted 

 selfishness is the germ of half the evils that afflict the 

 human race, and that the true and sure way to a 

 bounteous satisfaction of the wants of each is a gen- 

 erous and thoughtful consideration for the needs of 

 all. 



And here let me pay my earnest and thankful 

 tribute to Mr. E. V. de Boissiere, a philantliropic 

 Frenchman, who has purchased 3,300 acres of 

 mainly rolling prairie-land in Kansas, near Prince- 

 ton, Franklin County, and is carefully, cautiously, 

 laying thereon the foundations of a great cooperative 

 farm, where,, in addition to the usual crops, it is ex- 

 pected that Silk and other exotics will in due time be 

 extensively grown and transformed into fabrics, and 

 that various manufactures will vie with Agricul- 

 ture in affording attractive and profitable employ- 

 ment to a considerable population. I have not 

 been accustomed to look with favor on our new 

 States and unpeopled Territories as an arena for 

 such experiments, since so many of their early 

 settlers are intent on getting rich by land-specula- 

 tion at all events, through the exercise of some 

 others' muscles than their own while the oppor- 



