r feature of insurance continued to grow in
popular favor.

To enable the company to dispense with a great deal of expensive
bookkeeping, to do business with a small amount of actual cash, and at
the same time add another check against the disposition to hoard money;
the payment of wages to the members of the company was made in Solaris
scrip, good at its face value for all purchases made from the company.
Whenever cash was needed by any of the members, an order on the
treasurer drawn by the president and approved by the general manager,
could easily be obtained for reasonable amounts. On presentation of the
order, U. S. legal tenders to the amount specified, would be exchanged
for the scrip, dollar for dollar; the treasurer cancelling this scrip by
stamping across its face the date of the exchange and the name of the
member, retaining the cancelled scrip as his voucher for the
disbursement of the money. When scrip was exchanged at the store for
goods, it was cancelled in the same way by the manager of the store. The
plan seemed to work without friction and gave general satisfaction.

At the beginning of each month an executive committee, composed of three
men and three women, was chosen by the members of the company. This
committee, with the general manager as chairman, made an order of work
for each day and assigned the members to the different kinds of work
named in the order. These assignments were always accepted cheerfully.
The co-operators without exception and without murmur worked steadily
and with zeal for one common result. They were keenly alive to both the
importance and the advantages of this new kind of co-operative work,
which gave them so many hours of leisure for rest and recreation. With
the experience of each passing month, they realized more than ever
before that sixteen hours out of the twenty-four so devoted, soon
stimulated and reinforced the vital energies to such an extent that
active labor seemed really desirable. As a matter of fact, each day they
began to look forward eagerly to the six hours of farm work and the two
hours additional of skilled labor, as opportunities which gave them
refreshing and delightful exercise. Exercise that was necessary to
promote health and happiness--exercise which left them with an added
relish and brighter mental conditions for the enjoyment of the hours of
study and amusement that were to follow. Here again, the wisdom of
nature's law of compensation was demo