iod of time, a large majority of the people of this planet
have gained a living by following agricultural pursuits. Bowed down
under the weight of severe toil, hopeless under the pressure of a
belief, that labor was a curse which they might not seek to escape;
confined by ignorance to a narrow sphere of action, which kept them from
looking upward and outward; it is not strange, that so many passing
generations of these people, should never once dream of adopting a
series of progressive changes for the betterment of their condition.

"Such people were incapable of understanding, that, in order to secure
the best and most successful results from agricultural work, it requires
a systematic application of the highest order of brain work: that this
brain work, must inspire a harmonious collection of trained, muscular
workers, operating under the most favorable conditions. By the way of a
contrast, how helpless were the lives of these farmers! As a rule they
worked under the most discouraging conditions, distrustful and envious,
uneducated and narrow minded; how could they be prepared to comprehend
that basic law of progress, which is embodied in the idea of unselfish
co-operation?

"For these reasons, co-operative thinking and co-operative farming, have
not heretofore been successfully combined. Here and now, in the first
decade of the twentieth century, a few unselfish souls, the advance
guard of the coming army, responding to the pressure of progressive
evolution, have risen to such intellectual heights as has enabled them
to discover, that by the aid of a harmonious union of thought and labor,
a collection of people, working the soil unselfishly together, can
easily attain results which, the most brilliant individual effort, armed
with the wealth of a millionaire, could never hope to accomplish.
Inspired with this idea, the people of Solaris, as pioneers in the work,
are striving earnestly to demonstrate the absolute success of
co-operative farming."

"What I have seen with my own eyes, I know as a verity!" said Fern,
enthusiastically. "Therefore I feel like shouting in the ears of our
people: Well done, good and faithful servants in the cause of progress!
The victory is already won! It is yours!

"Your explanation of the cause of the late coming of practical
co-operation in agriculture, appeals to my mind, as a very clear one.
That the ignorance and selfishness of the individual, has from the
beginning, proved the re