Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/689

 THE RUSKIN CO-OPERATIVE COLONY 669

in their inventory, and, this fact being ascertained, they lost the suit and were obliged to keep the machinery and pay for it. As the manufacture and sale of sash was impracticable there, owing to the location, etc., all the money paid for the machinery was lost.

The circulation of the paper, owing perhaps to increasing competition, was meanwhile decreasing at a rapid rate, and the colonists found that they would be obliged to raise their own farm produce. After they had gone to the expense of putting a barbed-wire fence around their land, they found that it was worthless, and began to look about for other land. They pur- chased a tract of land some four miles farther from the railroad. When the neighboring farmers found that the colony was obliged to purchase better land somewhere in the neighborhood, they raised the price of their land. It has been hinted that there was a connivance between some member of the purchasing committee and the sellers, but, whatever the facts may be, they lost another thousand dollars or so by paying a high price for their land. Having obtained the new site, they moved there, but now they were six miles from the nearest railroad station, which was a great disadvantage, for everything had to be hauled over roads that usually followed creek beds and abounded with stones, sand, and gravel, so that only a very small load could be hauled. All they bought from the outside world was necessarily hauled over this rough, bridgeless road and the cost correspond- ingly increased, while the products of their industries were decreased in value by the cost of this haul. Having settled in the new location, farming was begun. But the southern soil has certain peculiarities which the northern and the western soil has not, and a northern farmer cannot work a southern farm profit- ably until he understands these peculiarities and is willing to admit that he does not know all about farming. The tools used by the northern farmer cannot all be used by the southern farmer, and as the colony farmer was a northern man, some money was wasted by purchasing implements which were found to be use- less in the South. It has been asserted that this loss amounted to as much as $500.