And now consider that in each of my little free commu~
nities there would be a machine which would wash and dry
the dishes, and do it, not merely to the eye and the touch,
but scientifically -- sterilizing them -- and do it at a saving
of all of the drudgery and nine-tenths of the time! All of
these things you may find in the books of Mrs. Gilman;
and then take Kropotkin's 'Fields, Factories, and Work~
shops,' and read about the new science of agriculture, which
has been built up in the last ten years; by which, with
made soils and intensive culture, a gardener can raise ten
or twelve crops in a season, and two hundred tons of vege~
tables upon a single acre; by which the population of the
whole globe could be supported on the soil now cultivated
in the United States alone! It is impossible to apply such
methods now, owing to the ignorance and poverty of our
scattered farming population; but imagine the problem of
providing the food supply of our nation once taken in hand
systematically and rationally, by scientists! All the poor
and rocky land set apart for a national timber-reserve, in
which our children play, and our young men hunt, and our
poets dwell! The most favorable climate and soil for each
product selected; the exact requirements of the commu~
nity known, and the acreage figured accordingly; the most
improved machinery employed, under the direction of ex~
pert agricultural chemists! I was brought up on a farm,
and I know the awful deadliness of farm-work; and I like
to picture it all as it will be after the revolution. To pic~
ture the great potato-planting machine, drawn by four
horses, or an electric motor, ploughing the furrow, cutting
and dropping and covering the potatoes, and planting a
score of acres a day! To picture the great potato-digging
machine, run by electricity, perhaps, and moving across a
thousand-acre field, scooping up earth and potatoes, and
dropping the latter into sacks! To see every other kind
of vegetable and fruit handled in the same way -- apples
and oranges picked by machinery, cows milked by electric~
ity -- things which are already done, as you may know.
To picture the harvest-fields of the future, to which mill~
ions of happy men and women come for a summer holiday,

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