“You are not alone, Brother Thompson,” said he, “in your apprehensions. Most of us entertain the same doubts as to the future which you have expressed. But it is better it should be so than that we should, in such an enterprise, be carried away by enthusiasm. When soldiers approach the dangers of war, where death and glory mingle, their captain seeks to inspire them with a courage which dares but does not reason. No need of that with us. The task we have to accomplish is, in truth, devoid of danger. It is the easiest ever proposed to the intelligence of man. All that we need lies where God placed it centuries ago, and is ours, if only we will take it. If we make this task hard, it is because we will not reason. If dangers arise, they will not arise from the mountain, stream or valley, nor yet from yonder table lands nor grassy slopes. They will arise from ourselves. This we must study to avoid. This is our work. One thing, my brothers, we must do from the outset. Let our community be self-dependent. Let us call upon the outside world to help us as little as possible. Let us build our own homes, burn our own lime, manufacture our own furniture and crockery. Let us make it a rule that whatever we can make ourselves, no matter how much labor it costs us, that we will make. If we do this and work together success is certain.” The clergyman spoke for nearly half an hour and finished amid great enthusiasm, for his speech was able and brilliant and calculated to produce confidence in our enterprise. This ended the memorable first day. CHAPTER VI. THE GENERAL SYSTEM—PROGRESS THE FIRST YEAR—LAND TITLES—LABOR ORDERS. The city of Co-opolis was established, after the surrounding region was duly explored, upon the site of our first camp in Deer Valley. The Hacket ranch and water rights were acquired by our company at a small expense, the farmers went to work upon it immediately and in a comparatively short time we had many acres of land broken and planted. We sowed very little wheat the first year, but made a specialty of corn, calculating that we could feed it to our cattle and hogs, and believing that we could realize more from our live stock than from the raising and sale of wheat. We also planted vegetables of all kinds in quantities which we believed would not only suffice for our company for the following winter, but would enable us to dispose of a surplus in the mining camps in the mountains.