The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1877-03-03

The most poetic and fanciful of all these
was the famous community-settlement at
Brook Farm, in 1S41. A knot of poets,
philosophers, thinkers, a groHp Of strong
iDtellects in weak bodies, took a New Eng
land farm, and proposed to spend some
years Of happy quiet in what they were
pleased to term "cIose communion with
mother nature" They got tired Of mother
nature before many months, however, and
soon ran away from her apron strings
The best known woman of the community
was he famous Margaret Fuller the best
known man was the more famous N Nathaniel
Hawthorne. The latter has left US, in his
American Note Books" some memoranda
OF his stay. He calls Brook Farm, which
he found buried in snow in April, 'polar
Paradise When set to rake over a heap
OF manure by the managing committee, he
styles 1t gold mine" Finally, he
abandnps the dream of happy rural life,
and forsakes the farm for his study, the
plough for his books. fancy that the
failure of this attempt 10 combine work of
body and mind must have been in Emer-
sons thoughts when he wrote these gently
satire sentences
with brow bent, with firm intent, the
pale scholar leaves his desk to draw freeI
breath, and get juster statement of his
thought, in the garden-W walk. He stoops
to pull up purslain or dock that ia chok-
ing the young corn, and finds there are
two close behind the last, is a third he
reaches out his hand to a fourth behind
that are four thousand and one. He Is
heated and untuned, and, BY and by,
wakes up from his idiot dream Of chick
weed and red-root to remember his morn.
ing thought and to lind that, with his
adamantine purposes, be has been duped
by dandeli0n."
So Brook Farm went its way and the
way was the broad aud easy path that
leadeth to destruction. And at about the
same time, there was a general collapse of
other experiments IN cooperative agricul-
ture, under the leadership OF Robert Owen
and Horace Greeley, and other reform ers.
who, like these, have 70 be dead for years
before the word hnds out that il has
crucihed the men who woald have saved IT,
Cooperative production in agriculture
has been successfully and permanently
tried IN the United States only by various
fAnatical religious societies, such a. the
Perfectionlsts at Oneida, y. Y, and Wal
lington, Conn. the Loarites at New Loar;
and the Shakers, at Lebanon. These last
have q record Of SO years behind them
In these cases, religious emotion has pro
duced admirable business results.
There are, however, some hopeful non
religious experiments in this line nov be-
ing tried at the East, | know not whether
Western farmers have been shrewd enough
to initiate them. These experiments are
the great cooperative dairies Of New Jersey
and New York. One Of them is said to
use, every day, the milk OF 6,OOO cows.
The farmers of a certain section combine
to run a mammoth dairy; each day, the |
dairy wagons gather milk from the whole !
country around it is shipped to New York |
City or intermediate points in the shape of
mix, cream, butter and cheese The |
dalrymRa sells it, takes his pay from the !
proceeds, and divides the restot the money |
among the partners IN this farmers hrrn. I
] am told that cooperative cheese made in /
New Jersey is sold in London under the |
name of famous Swiss brand, Fromdge de |
Bris.
These dairies have 50 far been successful. |
IT they continue so, chickens and eggs,
and finally garden vegetables and grain |
will no doubt be ultimately handled by the |
firm. This will save time and make money. |
The farmers Of that day, exulting in their |
success, will say ''How wise we are and |
how foolish our fathers were"
The religious fervor that has made CO.
operative farming a success even on those |
Connecticut fields, which yield two bushels
Of wheat and twenty tons Of stone TO the
acre, finds its counterpart in England in the
almost tanatical zeal with which some Eng |
lish co-operators have ridden their blessed
hobby. These men have made religion
out sf their work Their fiery zeal has
burned its way through seltshness, through
stupidity, through stolidity, to success.
One Of these prophets Of the new gospel
Of peace and prosperity on earth. is Edward
Owen Greening, Of London. He told me,
on a summers day in 1873, the story Of
the Agricultural and Horticultural Asso-
citation Of England, Of which he was then
and is now the managing Director. 1t il
the most hopeful and successful expert
ment in distributive agricultural co-opera-
tion in England.
The organization began in a chance con
versation in railway carriage between
Mr.. Thomas Hughes and Mr. Greening.
The two were on the way to London from
the north Of England, where they had been
4
Said Mr.. Greening Suppose we try to
do something in cooperation for the
farmer 7" Mr.. Hughes thought there was
no use in trying The question was de
bated long and earnestly. few days At
terwards, one uf them laid a rough plan of
a proposed association before the present
Earl Of Derby, a leader Of the "agricul-
tural interest" The Earl said the idea
was good, but impracticabl4 neverthe-
less, the society was born and baptized.
With great difficulty a dozen men were
found who we're willing to be Directors
A stock Of agricultural supplies Of every
kind, from machinery TO manure, was
| bought. The balance of the capital Vas
/ spent in advertising in the agricultural
papers not a single customer came not
a dollars worth Of anything was sold.
/ Finally, personal solicitation secured few
customers and pure goods soon did the
rest. Thenceforth, the association 8 growth
was steady and not slow, considering the
class Of men with whom il had to deal. la
June, 1873 its membership was 783 It's
capital was nearly $65, 600; its business
for the year Just ended had been $3.50, 000 !.
and the net gain 10 members during that
time had been about $l4,00 ! under
stand that these figures represent the facts
of to-day but family, and that the sssocia-
tion has become quite wealthy. One Of its
best deeds il the prevention Of adultera-
tion, the crying sin Of modern trade. 1--WE
eat and drink and wear perjury and fraud, "
says Emerson. This London firm of
farmers has some Of the best chemists in
England in its employ. X analyses or
tests everything it buys. The results Of
the analysis are printed IN colored charts,
and distributed among the members, that
they may be on their guard. They need
to be. In that month Of June, 1873, 4 90
called "Pure Linseed-cake Association, 9"
nominally formed to check the adulteration