"That sounds logical and reasonable," said Fern. "I now remember, that while traveling in Europe with my father, gathering agricultural statistics: the Capelle experiments were brought to our attention at that time, as worthy of careful consideration. I am greatly pleased to know that you are already familiar with them. To continue the subject, I wish to say that I am much impressed with the outlook for intensive farming at Solaris. Aided by the wonderful power of applied co-operative thinking, combined with your careful and comprehensive system of book-keeping, which embraces every field and department of the farm! I believe that ten years hence, you will be able to give to the world, some very valuable statistics on the whole subject of farming, both intensive and diversified.
"I have noticed with an unusual degree of interest, the apparently lavish use of electric power in operating the factory works and farm machinery. I am really quite curious to know just how it is generated."
"That is a very large question!" said Fillmore. "At different times since the commencement of our work, we have used three methods for generating electricity. First, the old fashioned steam dynamo. Second, the direct conversion of coal into electricity. Third, the gathering of great quantities of this subtle force from the atmosphere, through a certain vibratory action, set up by intense concentration of the sun's rays. As a result of a vast deal of co-operative thinking and careful experimentation; the last named process, has been so perfected and cheapened, as to entirely supersede the first two. The powerful batteries of Solaris concentrators, which you see around the power-house, and at various points on the farm, are important factors in this work. I confess, that I am rather proud of the remarkable success, which we have achieved in this line of invention. When I gave a title to the farm, I had a premonition, that solar heat and force would be so successfully harnessed to both industrial and agricultural work, that the suggestive name of Solaris, would soon become as famous, as it was fitting and well earned.
"In applying this power to all kinds of farm and factory work, we have succeeded far beyond my most sanguine expectations. With a plant almost entirely built by our own co-operative labor, we are able to generate an abundance of cheap power, which can be easily and safely conducted to the most distant portions of the farm. This power is readily available at any desired point, and for all kinds of work; becoming the magic motor by which we operate trains of trolley cars, for handling grain, hay, corn and all heavy crops; great gang-plows, rollers, harrows, cultivators, planters, drills, reapers, threshers and motor wagons; all so perfectly constructed and so easily controlled; that with them a woman, fittingly dressed and gloved, protected from the heat of the sun by a canopy, comfortably seated on cushions and springs, may accomplish the roughest and heaviest kind of farm work, without fatigue or discomfort. In fact, our women soon find it the most delightfully, fascinating work on the farm.
"In connection with such a powerful motor, a single person, operating one of these improved agricultural machines, can do an amount of work in six hours, which under the old system would require ten hours of severe toil by six men and twelve horses. Of course, such machinery can only be produced and operated by large co-operative farms like this; with a carefully chosen force of co-operators, who are thinkers as well as workers; who are intellectually, physically and socially prepared to invent and construct machines that are perfectly fitted to do this particular kind of work."
"Really!" said Fern, "this is as interesting as it is remarkable! This sun-generated force, this magic motor, so perfectly adjusted to agricultural work, under the test of practical use; which has proved so easily controlled; together with the tireless host of wonder-working machines, which this force has called into being; is truly a marvel worthy of the twentieth century!
"Tell me, Fillmore! Why is it that these things have not been done before?"
"There are many reasons. I think I can give you the principal one. From a remote period of time, a large majority of the people of this planet have gained a living by following agricultural pursuits. Bowed down under the weight of severe toil, hopeless under the pressure of a belief, that labor was a curse which they might not seek to escape; confined by ignorance to a narrow sphere of action, which kept them from looking upward and outward; it is not strange, that so many passing generations of these people, should never once dream of adopting a series of progressive changes for the betterment of their condition.
"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."