Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1908-08-26
COMMUNISM IN IOWA
HOW THE HOLLAND COLONIES AT AMANA,
IOWA, LIVE.
An Interesting Story Of "Amana, the Com.
munity Of True Inspiration. A Pros.
porous and Industrious People.

Ii is delightful time of the year to
visit some Of the seven villages which
make up the colony at Amana !;
especially if you have friend with a
big automobile. From Cedar Rapids
to Fairfax, from Fairfax to Walford,
and especially from Walford until you
strike the beginning of the wooded
country near the colony. the scenery
is such as only Iowa can show. From
time to time as the road trails over
some of the higher ridges you are
shown series of landscapes which
would make an ideal panorama of
prosperity. Hayloaders are busy with
the biggest crop of hay Iowa has
known in years. cured by the sun
shine into esculent, fragrant winter
food for the cattle which are now
standing in the creek under the viii.
lows in the creek away down in the
pasture. The barley harvest has be-
gun and the binders are busy, hasten
ing to be ready by the time the green
of the oatfields has been warmed into
an amber hue. Great fields Of dark
green corn stretch away as far as the
eye can see; already much of the corn
is waist high and as free from weeds
as a garden. The heavy rains of
May and June have left no poor places
in the picture down beneath the fine
which is enabling the corn to revel in
the great heat. In every direction,
five, ten. fifteen, sometimes twenty
miles across the smoothly contoured
country to the far distant forest
covered ridge. this is the smiling
picture. accented by big, red barns,
white windmill sails peeping above
the top of the groves. and here and
there comfortable farm houses. where
gaily-colored. old-fashioned flowers
reach up to the green shutters. The
first of the summer apples are ripen-
ing on the trees, and the sun bonneted
women are gathering the luscious red
raspberries from the vines.
AS the car glides over the smooth
roads there are other signs of summer.
Orange red lilies grow like torches
in the swamps and the lemon yellow
loosestrife lights the way along the
brooks. Great white clusters OF
bunchf1owe + make pleasing contrast
with the masses of slender branched
purple loosestrife. Gu the banks the
orange -fowered milkweed attracts
hundreds of brilliant butterflies and
the lack.eyed susans. with the rosin
weeds, are glorying in the sun.
Goldtinches in graceful undulations
cross the meadows, and brown
thrashers hastily pilot their young
from the road. Bobwhites get con-
fused because the big car approaches
so much more rapidly than farm
buggy; so they sit stock still on the
tops of the fence posts until the car
has passed them and fly for dear life
across the waving grass. The dick
cissel gives his endless song from the
head of a purple conefiower and the
Indigo bird is singing with the lark
sparr ows from the telephone wires.
Loggerhead shrikes fly from the wire
fences on which they impale their
prey, and the kingbirds. whose bills
click like steel traps as they catch
their wing meals. are everywhere in
evidence. Near some of the farm
houses hundreds uf the gregariouS
barn swallows are strung thickly on
the telephone wires, where they are
too comfortable TO move as the car
glides by.
East Amana, the first village
reached as you go from Cedar Rapids,
is not so large nor so mercantile as
some of the other villages, but it is
one of the most charming. and Ger.
tainly none of them could be more
hospitable. The rows OF unpainted
houses are located on a broad, high
ridge, from which You look down
across a broad valley, which is part
of the colony land. to the channel OF
the Iowa river, which flows peace
fully between the trees. Beyond 1t
the ridges rise, somewhat steeply,
covered with native timber, now a
mass of dark green, glimmering in a
delicate violet haze.
1t has been said that the houses OF
East Amana are all unpainted because
paint is part OF the vanity OF this
world; that is not wholly true'
rhese quiet, Intelligent men
tell you that they have made ex-
periments and have found that II Is
cheaper to put on new clapboards at
long intervals than 1t is to keep the
houses painted.
The only paint you see is on the
ornamental bird houses, one OF when
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