360 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



journey from the north to the southern prairies 

 for harvesting the crops ; while many St. 

 Petersburg manufacturers reduce their pro- 

 duction in the summer, because the operatives 

 return to their native villages for the culture 

 of their allotments. 



Agriculture cannot be carried on without 

 additional hands in the summer ; but it still 

 more needs temporary aids for improving the 

 soil, for tenfolding its productive powers. 

 Steam-digging, drainage, and manuring would 

 render the heavy clays in the north-west of 

 London a much richer soil than that of the 

 American prairies. To become fertile, those 

 clays want only plain, unskilled human labour, 

 such as is necessary for digging the soil, laying 

 in drainage tubes, pulverising phosphorites, and 

 the like ; and that labour would be gladly 

 done by the factory workers if it were properly 

 organised in a free community for the benefit 

 of the whole society. The soil claims that sort 

 of aid, and it would have it under a proper 

 organisation, even if it were necessary to stop 

 many mills in the summer for that purpose. 

 No doubt the present factory owners would 

 consider it ruinous if they had to stop their 

 mills for several months every year, because 

 the capital engaged in a factory is expected to 

 pump money every day and every hour, if pos- 



