Each member of the corporation has the right to
send up to these pastures five head for the summer. Those sending more,
pay for the privilege; those sending less, receive a rental. On a
specified day at the beginning of the season and on another at the
close, the milk of each cow is weighed; from these amounts her average
yield is estimated, and her total produce computed. The cheese and
butter from the herds are sold, most of it in Milan, the hire of the
herders paid, and the net revenue divided among the members according to
the yield of their cows.

In Glarus, the produce of the greater part of the communal lands,
instead of being directly divided among the inhabitants, is substituted
for taxation. The commonable alps are let by auction for a term of
years, and, in opposition to ancient principles, strangers may bid for
them. Some of the Glarus communes sell the right to cut timber in the
forest under the superintendence of the guardians. The mountain hotels,
in not a few instances the property of the communes, are let year by
year. Land is frequently rented from the communes by manufacturing
establishments. A citizen not using his share of the communal land may
lease it to the commune, which in turn will let it to a tenant. The
communes of Glarus are watchful that enough arable land is preserved for
distribution among the members. If a plot is sold to manufacturers, or
for private building purposes, a piece of equal or greater extent is
bought elsewhere. Glarus has relatively as many people engaged in
industries aside from farming as any other spot in Europe. It has 34,000
inhabitants, of whom nearly 15,000 live directly by manufactures, while
of the rest many indirectly receive something from the same source.
Distributive cooeperative societies on the English plan exist in most of
the industrial communes. The members of the communal corporations in
Glarus, though not rich, are as free and independent as any other
wage-workers in the world: they inherit the common lands; their local
taxes are little or nothing; they are assured work, if not in the
manufactories then on the land.

Of the poverty that fears pauperism in old age, that dreads enforced
idleness in recurrent industrial crises, that undermines health, that
sinks human beings in ignorance, that deprives men of their manhood, the
Swiss who enjoy the common lands of the Landsgemeinde cantons know
little or nothing. They have enough. They have nothing to wast