At this time we had a rapidly increasing trade at our store and were supplying many of the camps with such goods as they needed. Two of our own wagons were constantly employed in conveying groceries, hardware and other ware to our customers in the mountains, and it was not an uncommon thing for five or six wagons to come down in the course of a day for goods. The enterprise was successful and the prices which we obtained for what we sold were very profitable. We were obliged, however, to constantly replenish our stock of groceries, dry goods, hardware and drugs from the east. We also sold large quantities of beef in the mountains and, not caring to draw too heavily on our own herds for this demand, we kept a number of men constantly employed hunting and purchasing animals suitable for the purpose. We also devoted a building to the sick and our hospital was already quite famous throughout the entire region. Men in the camps who were injured or who had become sick preferred to endure the journey to Co-opolis to avail themselves of our physicians and nurses rather than risk the rough and sometimes reckless treatment to which they were elsewhere exposed. Our hotel, store and hospital were sources of profit which aided us largely the first and second years of our career. One of the most difficult problems which we had to solve the first year was that of providing a medium of exchange for the use of our own members and also such persons as we might employ. We recognized that, although the money of society was at variance and inconsistent with all our plans, until we had fully established the Co-operative Commonwealth and acquired the state and all it contained, it would be impossible to establish a labor-check system. We decided that money was to be treated as a mere commodity and purchased as such, just as potatoes, wheat or beef were purchased. In dealing with the world outside of our society we must have money until we should become independent of it. It was on that theory that we endeavored to keep our fund of United States currency increasing. How to deal among ourselves was the question. We were satisfied that members should, as nearly as possible, receive equal shares of what was produced in our colony, provided they were industrious and worked honestly, but we deemed that in the formative period of the commonwealth it was inexpedient to adopt the check system of Bellamy’s social plan exclusively. We did, however, decide that checks should be given to those who desired them, but that, owing to the fact that many of our workers were to be, at the outset, mere hired men, it would be better to issue orders for each one’s share as measured by dollars. The laws of the United States practically denied us the right to issue money or circulating notes, and our purpose was to build our state in entire harmony with the constitution. We proposed to avoid a conflict with the Federal government.