The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-06-07

bAAS WO1 hC1 . plCops
DEAR FRIEND:
have been for some time thinking
of writing to you about the life and
operations of this commune. To go
into all of the details of the history
of the past five years would require
too much time and patience, so you
will have to be content to hear only
a short outline.
The Commune's first group arrived
in the fall Of 1922. 1t consisted of IS,
of these 60 were men. In 1923 the
membership grew to 121. In 1924
it increased to 142. In 1925 it went
up to 1877. In 1926 the total was 204.
All Of these people, excepting a very
few, have come from America. At
present, 20 per cent of our members
are Russian speaking, the rest being
Finnish speaking. We have about
100 able-bodied men at present. The
turnover of members has been such
that about q Of all that have come
here have left, some going back to
America, some to Finland, others
have stayed in Russia.
Good Black Earth.
The land we have under our control
consists of 1900 acres of nearly
level black soil, praiie tillable land
with fairly good waters at the center
Also creek at both ends, with rail-
road crossing the strip. This land
lies in IA KIN. long and 81 KIN. wide
1t is - KIM to the nearest railroad
station.
We have our buildings in two
places. At the southern end the
creek is damned up. We use the
water to irrigate our garden. Here
we also have our hog industry, with
new $40 #. long 26 fl. wide modern
concrete hog house with double story
kitchen in the middle. The place at
the southern end is the remains of 9
former landlords place of residence,
but hardly any of the buildings have
escaped the civil war destruction. The
new place is about the center of the
land, one KIN. from the railroad. Here
we have our headquarters, office,
machine and blacksmith shop, car
penter shop and grainery. These
buildings are almost all concrete con-
structions.
The capital has been formed as fol-
lows: in 1923-171 ,534r4Sn; in 1924
1T ,477r56k; in 1925-277, 8O8r38k; in
1926-331, 932r01k. Zone ruble equal
to so cents).
The capital is divided as follows:
Fundamental or undividable
capital ..........68, 178r15k
From membership dues,
capital ......... 1873, 1904
Outside capital ........ 17,149.17
Reserve capital ....... 55,126.81
Operating capital from
members ........ 37,O0f.15
Operating capital from out
side ............. 15,5O9.09
Machinery is brought from Ameri-
ca. Tractor horsepower has increased
in the following way. In 1922, 8
Fordsons; in 1923, tractors with
total horsepower of $50; in 1924, 7
with HIP. of $50; in 1925, II with
HIP. of 500; in 1926, 10 with HIP. of
AGO; in 1927, II with HIP. $40. All
tractors are from America except
two so HIP. caterpillar tractors bought
here.
More Machinery.
Other farm machinery has increased
accordingly. At present we have four
threshing machines. Three are 35x
so size and / is 24x40. The larger
threshers are capable of threshing
1900 bushels of wheat per day We
have -, s #. cut and 4, 6 IT. Gu;
grain binders. EIGHT drills or seed
ing machines. total width Tiff, can
able of seeding $50 acres per dav.
We have 48, IA" pillow bottoms capable
Of blowing about 100 acres per dav.
We have six double disks which do
not quite fulfill our requirement. Of
peg tooth harrows we have twenty
capable of narrowing $50 acres per
dav. We have 40 wagons. The heavv
TYNE have a capacity Of tors, end
10 have grain tanks with canacity