The opportunity for coöperative industry is nowhere greater than in a community of farmers. Butter and cheese factories, cold storage plants and milk stations invite the coöperation of interested farmers upon the simplest possible basis of agreement. The multiplication of such enterprises is desirable, and the farmers of every community may profitably study the conditions of success. The greatest obstacle heretofore, has been the want of competent management, and the distrust aroused and maintained by the inefficiency and fraud of managers. It is possible, too, that farmers generally do not recognize the actual importance of executive abilities, and are unwilling to pay the salary actually earned by a thoroughly competent man. _Legal restrictions as to labor._—It is natural for those who suffer in the struggle for better wages to seek the support of law in restrictions upon contracts as to wages, hours of employment and conditions of comfort. The principle that governments must protect the weak against the strong in any community is a thoroughly established one. Yet its applications are subject to continual readjustment. Multitudes of experiments have been tried, affecting the whole range of inequalities in wages and perquisites. In many instances, wages have been fixed by law, and that for long periods of time, but without relieving in any respect the actual force of competition among wage-earners themselves. Indeed, the tendency of very explicit enactments is to weaken the individual ability of wage-earners by destroying ambition. Wages fixed by law are necessarily as low as the average would be in a free competition; otherwise production is hindered and capital is diminished. With this low average any worker of more than average ability gains nothing by exerting his ability, but does gain ease by neglect. Thus enforced uniformity reduces the energy of the producing forces and practically closes the doors of advancement from wage-earning to profit-making. A similar effect is found in efforts to regulate the hours of labor by law, except where the law simply defines the meaning of a day’s work or emphasizes the importance of public health and vitality rather than equality in distribution. Humanity has done much in reducing hours of toil, and may yet do more; but it will be for humanity’s welfare in larger considerations than are measured by money. The eight-hour question, so constantly agitated in certain callings, concerns the entire people just so far,—and no farther,—as the general health and energy of the community depend upon it. Farming communities stand aloof from its application; and yet there is no question that the farmer’s home might be even better than it is for developing physical and mental vigor, if hours of toil were more carefully restricted to meet the conditions of healthful growth and activity.