A Cityless and Countryless World
An Outline of Practical Co-Operative Individualism
Henry Olerich
[A condensed and edited version of the book
originally published by Gilmore & Olerich, Holstein, Iowa, 1893 /
CHAPTER 10 - Exterior of the "Big-House"]
Our countries, or grand divisions of land, are divided into
rectangular communities, about 24 miles long and 6 miles wide. Each
community is surrounded by 60 miles of motor-line. Railroads are about
100 miles apart, running both north and south and east and west. Each
community under ordinary conditions contains about one hundred and
twenty big-houses. The inmates of each big-house generally number
about one thousand. The inhabitants of each community, then, are
nearly one hundred and twenty thousand. Each community has about
fifteen or twenty warehouses, mills and factories. Both the
communities and the big-houses are numbered.
[W]e can raise an abundant crop in our garden in spite of the
greatest drought. We do not need nature to moisten the thirsty soil to
germinate the seed when planted, nor do we need her to kiss the
verdant foliage with her liquid treasure from the clouds, nor from the
dewdrops of a quiet night. The hand of art, in the form of a gigantic
sprinkler, can produce the necessary shower, in which the tiny rainbow
plays in the sunbeam, when and where we want it.
What our orchard, garden and green-house can not successfully produce
is shipped in from tropical regions in refrigerator cars, which are
cold in the summer and warm in the winter.
The farming is all done with electric motors or engines. The work is
mere play. Everything is done with machinery on a large scale; hardly
any muscular power is required. Our land is all well fertilized. The
plowing is done by huge gang plows and rotating harrows. The harrowing
and sowing is done by a machine over fifty feet wide, which harrows,
sows, and then harrows again all at the same time.
I may say here that our poultry is all hatched by steam incubators,
and is as well housed as we are ourselves. In the winter we have large
areas covered with glass, under which they enjoy the warm sunshine and
even temperature almost the same as in the summer. By these means we
get abundance of eggs during the whole year.
Do you see how vastly we save wealth and labor by our extensive
voluntary co-operation?
How densely [the] population [of the rest of the world] huddles
together in cities and towns, eking out a bare existence in garrets
and tenement houses which are totally unfit for an abode of a human
being; and how lamely and single- handed [the] agriculturist toils,
early and late, for the support of himself, his so-called family, and
the army of city unproductive and destructive laborers. What a slave a
wife is who has to live either in a city garret or tenement house, or
in a lonely country home! How little intellectual culture she can
attain! How financially dependent she is on her master the so-called
husband! How his children are working themselves crooked, stiff, and
otherwise deformed from the long, heavy day's toil! How little room
there is for intellectual development under such social and industrial
burdens! All is toil, slavery, and obedience. No parks, no fine walks,
no pleasant rides, no greenhouses where a flower or green plant can be
picked during the cold winter day when something green cheers the
heart and delights the eye. [G]ardens are rudely laid out, and mostly
full of weeds and poultry, and some times hogs and cattle. Your
orchards are planted with a few varieties of trees which often bear a
better crop of caterpillars than fruit; shrubbery is largely choked to
death in some fence corner or under some larger trees, for want of
sunshine and moisture. [Lawns are] often an ash-pile, and not
unfrequently a rubbish-heap.
CONTENTS
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