One other point came up for discussion in the course of the winter and that was the question of specialization; of whether as a community it would pay us better to center our efforts upon some one line such as dairy products, meat products, vegetable products or what not, or whether it wasn’t better as small farmers with no particular advantages of soil or market for us to carry on diversified farms. On the whole the latter was the opinion of the school experts and also carried the strongest appeal to the majority of us. If every man kept at least one cow, a hog or so, a few sheep and a few hens, he first of all was then in a position to supply himself--and after all a man is his own best market--and secondly it gave him a more regular income as his stock didn’t develop for the market all at one time; and thirdly, he didn’t put all his eggs in one basket. A man specializing for instance in poultry is apt by disease to lose his whole flock and the same is true of his herd or his hogs. A diversified farm makes a man independent of market conditions. If poultry is low and eggs high he can keep his pullets for eggs. If beef is low and butter high, he can keep his cows for milk and vice versa. In other words, he isn’t forced to sell at certain times regardless of what the market is. One thing, however, was insisted upon, that so far as possible a man should keep the best of each kind. This led to the subject of breeding, and this led in turn to the question of whether to this end it wasn’t possible for us as a group to invest in a common breeder--a blooded bull, a blooded ram, which as individuals none of us could afford. And this again led, as about everything we touched upon that winter had led, to the question of closer coöperation. Two hundred years ago the Indians and various other forces which to-day seem to us only romantic led our ancestors to coöperate in a certain way; to-day economic conditions are bringing about the same result. In February the one thought that was uppermost in the minds of us all was coöperation. CHAPTER XIII GETTING TOGETHER For two winters we had met together and amused ourselves together. That was what counted--counted even more than the work we had done together. Perhaps you wouldn’t think that this social intercourse and the establishment of this common pioneer background was of any great importance, but if you had been one of us you would surely have felt its importance. It made us one big family as nothing else in the world could have done. Church societies build up as many barriers as they break down; so, too, do fraternal and political societies. But here we went back to a meeting ground which kept us shoulder to shoulder with one another and with our common past. Men and women can be entertained together when nothing else is possible.