From the Annual Statement of the Condition and Progress of the Wisconsin Phalanx, for the fiscal year ending December 1, 1845.
"The four great evils with which the world is afflicted, intoxication, lawsuits, quarreling, and profane swearing, never have, and with the present character and prevailing habits of our members, never can, find admittance into our society. There is but a very small proportion of the tattling, backbiting and criticisms on character, usually found in neighborhoods of as many families. Perfect harmony and concert of action prevail among the members of the various churches, and each individual seems to lay aside creeds, and strive for the fundamental principles of religion. Many have cultivated the social feeling by the study and practice of vocal and instrumental music. In this there is a constant progress visible. Our young gentlemen and ladies have occasionally engaged in cotillions, especially on wedding occasions, of which we have had three the past summer.
"Our convenience for schools, their diminished expense, &c., is known only to those acquainted with Association. We have done but little in perfecting this branch of our new organization; but having erected a school-house, we are prepared to commence our course of moral, physical and intellectual education. For want of a convenient place, we have not yet opened our reading-room or library, but intend to do so during the present month.
"The family circle and secret domestic relations are not intruded on by Association; each family may gather around its family altar, secluded and alone, or mingle with neighbors without exposure to wet or cold. In our social and domestic arrangements we have approximated as far toward the plan of Fourier, as the difficulties incident to a new organization in an uncultivated country would permit. Owing to our infant condition and wish to live within our means, our public table has not been furnished as elegantly as might be desirable to an epicurean taste. From the somewhat detached nature of our dwellings, and the consequent inconveniencies attendant on all dining at one table, permission was given to such families as chose, to be furnished with provisions and cook their own board. But one family has availed itself of this privilege.
"In the various departments of physical labor, we have accomplished much more than could have been done by the same persons in the isolated condition. We have broken and brought under cultivation, three hundred and twenty-five acres of land; have sown four hundred acres to winter wheat; harvested the hundred acres which we had on the ground last fall; plowed one hundred and seventy acres for crops the ensuing spring; raised sixty acres of corn, twenty of potatoes, twenty of buckwheat, and thirty of peas, beans, roots, etc.; built five miles of fence; cut four hundred tons of hay; and expended a large amount of labor in teaming, building sheds, taking care of stock, etc.
"We have nearly finished the long building commenced last year (two hundred and eight feet by thirty-two), making comfortable residences for twenty families; built a stone school-house, twenty by thirty; a dining-room eighteen by thirty; finished one of the twenty-by-thirty dwellings built last year; expended about two hundred days' labor digging a race and foundation for a grist-mill thirty by forty, three stories high, and for a shop twenty by twenty-five, one story, with stone basements to both, and erected frames for the same; built a wash-house sixty by twenty-two; a hen house eleven by thirty, of sun-dried brick; an ash-house ten by twenty, of the same material; kept one man employed in the saw-mill, one drawing logs, one in the blacksmith shop, one shoe-making, and most of the time two about the kitchen.
"The estimated value of our property on hand is $27,725.22, wholly unincumbered; and we are free from debt, except about $600 due to members, who have advanced cash for the purchase of provisions and land. But to balance this, we have over $1,000 coming from members, on stock subscriptions not yet due.
"The whole number of hours' labor performed by the members during the past year, reduced to the class of usefulness, is 102,760; number expended in cooking, etc., and deducted for the board of members, 21,170; number remaining after deducting for board, 81,590, to which the amount due to labor is divided. In this statement the washing is not taken into account, families having done their own.
"Whole number of weeks board charged members (including children graduated to adults) forty-two hundred and thirty-four. Cost of board per week for each person, forty-four cents for provisions, and five hours labor.
"Whole amount of property on hand, as per invoice, $27,725.22. Cost of property and stock issued up to December 1, $19,589.18. Increase the past year, being the product of labor, etc., $8,136.04; one-fourth of which, or $2,034.01, is credited to capital, being twelve per cent. per annum on stock, for the average time invested; and three-fourths, or $6,102.03 to labor, being seven and one-half cents per hour.