The Rural Telephone 301 



would be so divided that each member of the association 

 would contribute an equivalent part of the material and 

 labor. If the country was wooded, the farmers making 

 up the association agreed to cut and supply the poles and 

 to haul them to the places where they were needed. In 

 many cases it might happen that one member of the group 

 of farmers had a wood lot and could supply all the poles, 

 and he would agree to furnish a sufficient number of poles, 

 while the other members of the association would take 

 charge of the work of setting them and stringing the wires. 

 The farmers' boys and the farm hands did the work of 

 setting the poles and putting on the cross-arms, which 

 would in many cases be hewn out of native timber. The 

 wire and the insulators, the switchboard and the instru- 

 ments, would have to be bought, and so a cash assessment 

 would be levied on each member to make these purchases. 

 If it became necessary to buy poles because of the lack of 

 suitable timber in the district, the assessment had to be 

 proportionally increased. The work of stringing the wires 

 and installing the instruments was taken up by the me- 

 chanically-minded farmers and their boys, and in a very 

 short time a complete telephone system was in operation. 

 The switchboard was placed in the house of one of the 

 members of the association situated at some convenient 

 point, and the operation of the lines was attended to by 

 the wife and daughters of the farmer in whose home the 

 board was located. 



"A strictly mutual, isolated system of this kind sufficed 

 for a while to give all the telephone service this particular 

 group desired, but it was not long before progressive farm- 

 ers realized the need of connection with the outer world. 



