"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 real obstacle, is now quite plain to me. "However, returning to my list of questions. How is it, that the fields and cultivated grounds at Solaris, are so free from weeds?" "Ah!" said Fillmore. "The answer to that question, is another argument in favor of co-operative farming. Weeds have always been counted by farmers, as among the worst of the pests which they have been obliged to contend with. Under the most adverse conditions, weeds will grow, flourish, and ripen an appalling quantity of seed; where all useful plants will languish and finally perish. To keep them down, is a task which requires a great deal of hard work. To destroy them, root and branch, is a problem which has occupied the minds of our people for the past thirty months. After much thoughtful work, we have reached a solution.