material merely to "sell." Women now buy these things and throw away their money, because, in the first place, as soon as a fabric acquires a reputation among us, advantage is taken of that to deteriorate it; and, in the second place, so many new fabrics are constantly thrown upon the market that we are bewildered and unable to judge between them. But the agents of our co-operative associations will soon become expert in judging of the value of goods. They will know too, of course, just what the women for whom they are choosing need and prefer, and, in consequence, they will not put anything upon their shelves that is not desirable in itself and good of its kind. Hence the placing of high-toned women as the medium of exchange between the great merchants and manufacturers and the consumers would not only be an economy to the community, but would tend to make trade more honest.
The Probable Effect on Agriculture.
I have exalted the harvests of the American continent, but, splendid as they are, they are not, in my opinion, half abundant enough; and I will now speak of the immense impetus I believe co-operative housekeeping would give to farming, and the revolution it would bring about in it.
The town and the country are now two separate worlds, each knowing but little about the other, and furthermore estranged by the enemies of both, the middle men, who stand between them, and render their only existing relation—namely, that interchange of values known as buying and selling—a base system of mutual extortion, which has finally reached a point perfectly unendurable. The American business principle, that cheating all round is no cheating at all, must be given up, for none but the rich can stand it. It will be the first aim of the co-operative housekeepers then, I trust, as it was with the Rochdale Pioneers (who, like ourselves, were sufferers from the speculations of middle men in the necessaries of life), to secure for each society a landed interest of its own. The first investment of their
