“Now, I shall endeavor to give you a description of the exterior of the ‘big-house,’” said Mr. Midith, as he began to draw a neat outline, on which he located four “big-houses” and a cross-section of a community, as shown on page 115.

“Before I give you a detailed description of the different parts of this outline, I shall have to refer you to the diagram I drew for you the other evening. (Page 58.) You will there notice that our communities are all numbered, as Community 1, 2, etc. Hence, a country as large as the United States, containing nearly 3,500,000 square miles, divided up into communities like ours, containing about four townships, or 144 square miles each, will make about 25,000 communities. I told you, in brief, that the ‘big-houses’ are situated along the motor-lines, on the perimeter of the communities, and are about half mile apart, as indicated by the dots in Community No. 1 (page 58). The ‘big-houses’ of each community are also numbered, as indicated by the figures 1, 2, 3, etc., in Community No. 1 (page 58).

“It is not strictly true that the ‘big-houses’ are located a half-mile apart, for about every four miles or closer, as indicated by the square dots in Community 2 (page 58), we have a large warehouse or factory instead of a ‘big-house;’ but these warehouses, etc., are very similar in structure to a ‘big-house.’ Now, we want to bear in mind that the communities are numbered, so that when we know the number of a certain community we know in what particular part of the country it is situated; and we also want to remember that the ‘big-houses’ of each community are numbered consecutively from 1 to about 135, including the warehouses, factories, etc. The number of a ‘big-house’ also indicates its location in the community.

“From what I have already said, then, you have learned the following facts:

“1. Our countries, or grand divisions of land, are divided into rectangular communities, about 24 miles long and 6 miles wide. 2. Each community is surrounded by 60 miles of motor-line. 3. Railroads are about 100 miles apart, running both north and south and east and west. 4. Each community under ordinary conditions contains about one hundred and twenty ‘big-houses.’ 5. The inmates of each ‘big-house’ generally number about one thousand. 6. The inhabitants of each community, then, are nearly one hundred and twenty thousand. 7. Each community has about fifteen or twenty warehouses, mills and factories. 8. Both the communities and the ‘big-houses’ are numbered.

“Now I think we are ready to give you a description of this outline or diagram, and the different parts it represents. Number 1 represents a double-tracked motor-line passing through the connecting wing of the ‘big-houses.’ Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 represent four ‘big-houses.’ Two and two are located just opposite each other, with the motor-line between them. This enables our motor-cars to stop at points only where two thousand persons reside. Nos. 2 and 4 belong to one community and Nos. 3 and 5 to another. No. 6 represents a hundred-foot wide boulevard fringed with the finest shade trees that nature and art can produce. This boulevard, of course, the same as all the other walks and strips of land which are numbered on this diagram, run parallel with the motor-lines all around the community. The floor of this boulevard is composed of artificial granite, cast on top of a solid foundation. It is clean, smooth, and more durable than natural granite. In the evening this boulevard and other walks are lighted with brilliant electric lights generated by the electric engine. On this smooth, shady, brilliantly-lighted boulevard, thousands of men, women and children spend part of their plentiful leisure time in healthful exercise. Some are riding elegantly-finished and highly-geared bicycles with which, under favorable conditions, a speed of 100 miles an hour can be made on this smooth, level track. Some are riding on splendid, convenient, electric carriages, which may be open or shaded, or entirely enclosed and heated with electricity from within during cold weather.

“On each side of the main boulevard Nos. 7 and 8, is a foot path shaded and floored the same as the boulevard. On these walks men, women and children take much of their walking exercises. The men and women wheel and carry the little babies in the fresh air on these fine walks.

“Each individual man, woman and child that can manage a bicycle, a carriage or other vehicle own one or more. Sometimes we go out alone; sometimes in company with a gentleman; sometimes in company with a lady. Of course, this is left entirely to the choice and taste of each individual.”

“It must be a splendid sight to see these fine bicycles, carriages and other vehicles swiftly gliding along this fine, endless boulevard!” exclaimed Mr. Uwins.

“It is indeed grand and cheerful,” responded Mr. Midith. “I wish it were possible that we could all spend an hour there about this time of a June evening.”

“But how can every one afford to buy all these nice things of which you speak?” asked Viola. “And you say, too, that ladies and children have them as well as gentlemen?”

“Certainly,” replied Mr. Midith. “A lady’s day’s work is worth just as much to us as a gentleman’s, and so it is to you; the only difference is we pay for it all it is worth and you do not. When you speak of affording to buy so many nice things, you must remember that we can afford to buy even much more than we actually do. By working together on such a large scale and only at productive labor, by having such a complete division of labor that we are all experts, and with the aid of the grand machinery, which are operated for the benefit of all and not for the benefit of a few as you do, our economy of wealth and labor is so immense, and our production so abundant, that we receive each according to your time and pay over $10 a day, which consists in an average of less than two hours of physical labor. So you see if you individually received more than $10 a day, besides the dwelling, fuel, light and all other public interests, you could buy all the luxuries and do all the traveling you desired and still have plenty of ‘money’ left for old age. After I have told you all about our social and industrial system, I hope you will be able to see why we are able to produce so much wealth with so little labor.

“But let us now go on with our description. I hope you will pardon me for the slight digression I made. A is a park one-fourth mile wide, extending from the boulevard to the motor line. In this park the ‘big-houses’ are located, as shown on diagram. No. 9 is a granite walk 100 feet wide, passing through and around the ‘big-houses’ from one to the other. No. 10 are nurseries 400 by 600 feet. Part of these nurseries are covered with glass and artificially warmed when necessary, and part of them are open. In these outdoor nurseries, the little children who are unable to care for themselves are playing part of their time.

“Nos. 11 and 12 are two artificial lakes for bathing and swimming purposes. They are fenced in with a high fence, so that no very little children can get in unattended. These lakes are each 100 by 300 feet in size, with a large fountain in the center of each. The water is supplied and the fountain fed by the engine in the ‘big-house.’ One of these lakes is fitted for children who can not swim, and is so shallow that they cannot drown in it. The entrance is guarded by a self-closing gate, which is so difficult to open that a child who is too young to help itself can not open. In this shady, crystal, clear lake, supplied with all bathing and swimming conveniences, our little children daily bathe, swim and play when the weather is favorable. Our children are so independent, so well taught, and things are all so convenient that a child two or three years old needs no assistance in dressing and undressing. They go where they like and do what they please. The other one of these lakes is similarly fitted up, but is much deeper and is used by grown persons. The entrance is guarded by a self-locking door, and no man or woman who does not carry a key can get in alone. This prevents little children from getting in, for they are not supplied with keys. By means of these artificial, as well as other natural bodies of water, every man, woman and youth is a good swimmer; we learn it in childhood and practice it all through life.

“This beautiful park, which is the pride of every member of the family, is adorned with closely shaven lawns, dense shade trees, rare ornamental trees, all varieties of beautiful odoriferous flowers, play-grounds for all kinds of out-door games, and all apparatus for amusement which men, women and children desire to use. The park and everything in it is kept in order by our most experienced men and women we have in the family.”

“Are your wives always attended by their husbands when out in the park, on the boulevard, etc., or do they sometimes go alone?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Mrs. Uwins, your question clearly shows that you do not yet understand our social conditions. We have no husband and wife at all as you know them here. But this I will explain to you further on under the head of sexual relations, because it does not belong to the present topic.

“No. 13, right along the boulevard, is a conservatory or green-house, 500 feet wide and almost entirely surrounded by glass, which we manufacture very cheaply and which is very inflexible and yet not brittle. This gives each family a very large green-house. It is nearly a half mile long and 500 feet wide, which gives us an area of nearly 30 acres of conservatory to each ‘big-house.’ We heat it with electricity generated by the house engine or by natural gas. To obtain the necessary moisture for this vast green-house, we have capacious reservoirs or cisterns, to which we attach a large hose sprinkler and let it rain when and where we please within its walls. This green-house furnishes all the flowers and green vegetables we want during the whole winter. It is under the immediate management of our most skillful horticulturists.

“No. 14 is a 50-foot walk immediately back and parallel with the conservatory.

“No. 15 is a garden 1,000 feet wide. It is all laid off in geometrical beds by professional gardeners, who work in the garden during the summer and in the immense green-house during the winter. This garden, with its countless variety of beautiful, fragrant flowers, and its endless clean paths, serves not only as a field for the production of all kinds of edible vegetables our world produces in that climate, but it serves as a park as well. During our long leisure hours, hundreds of ladies and gentlemen are strolling in its paths, eating what they like. This garden is so well worked that there is scarcely ever a weed in it. The soil is kept very rich; if not by nature, it is made so by fertilizers, which we manufacture abundantly. About midway across our garden is a subterranean tube supplied with water, to which hydrants are attached at short intervals. To these hydrants hose are attached for sprinkling purposes. So you see, we 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.

“No. 18 is a fifty-foot walk between the orchard and the main field, which extends clear across the community from orchard to orchard.

“No. 17 is an orchard 1,000 feet wide, although the width of it varies according to climate and adaptation for raising fruit. In this orchard we raise all varieties of fruit adapted to the climate. The trees are not crowded on the ground, and the lawn beneath them is always kept green and mown short by lawn mowers driven by an engine. Our tables never feel the effect of winter. 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 Nos. 20 are boulevards and walks leading to and from the ‘big-houses’ across the park, through the green-house, across the garden and orchard. They cross all the longitudinal boulevards and walks. You will notice that there is such a cross walk on each side of the ‘big-house.’ The one is used when going from the house, and the other when going to the house. This arrangement prevents all collision and confusion in going to and coming from the ‘big-houses.’

“The farming is all done with electric motors or engines, as I have already told you. 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. The harvesting and threshing I have already explained to you some time ago.”

I then asked Mr. Midith whether the Marsites raised corn and potatoes, and if so, what kind of machinery they had for that purpose, to which he replied:

“We raise corn and potatoes similar to yours; the only difference is that we have improved them more by cultivation, because we have had longer time. We have superior varieties than you now have; but as your botanical knowledge becomes more and more perfect, you will keep on improving the same as we have done.

“Our corn and potatoes are all planted with machines, which plant from four to ten rows at once. We have a corn husker that snaps the ears off from four to six rows and elevates them into a large wagon or car as the engine moves it along. The corn is of course not entirely free from husks when picked with this husker. When the car, or wagon, is full, it is taken to the warehouse, where the corn, the same as the other grain of which I have already told you, is dumped into a large hopper, from which elevators carry it to the curing bin, where daily thousands of bushels are cured. When the remaining husk is thoroughly dry, the corn passes through a machine, or husker, which breaks up all the dried, brittle husk, and here a powerful current of air separates the silk and broken up husk from the ears, which are again cured and then shelled and stored away for future use. Not a grain is thus wasted, spoiled, or damaged.

“Our potato-digger is almost perfect too. With it two or three persons and an engine can dig more than a thousand bushels a day. The digger is made something like this: A kind of incline plane plow runs under through the row, raises the soil and potatoes on the plow, which drops the whole on a wire elevator which lets the soil pass through it, and elevates the potatoes in a car back of the plows. In this manner one engine draws from two to four plows.

“Hay and other feed for cattle is not much needed; for as I have told you, we keep cattle only for dairy purposes, sheep for wool and poultry for eggs. The stock is raised on land not so well adapted for agriculture. The feed is nutritious and well prepared; the stabling is all of the very best and most convenient kind, warmed by electricity. The hay is cut with large mowers, which elevate the cut grass into the large wagon racks used with the headers. It is cured by artificial means the same as the grain.

“By this method we have always first-class hay highly nutritious. None of it is left on the field. None of it blows away; no waste, and not a particle of it is spoiled by rain, because it is always hauled in and cured as fast as it is cut.

“I notice that your method of hay-making is very slow, uncertain and wasteful, because much of it is totally spoiled by rain before it is stacked; a part of it is spoiled in the stack, and a large part of the remainder is more or less damaged in various ways.

“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, as compared with your single-handed, slipshod industries? How much disorder and inconvenience you experience? How often, when working your little farms, you are obliged to turn your weary, half-dead teams, which are trampling under foot the very crop you are trying to raise? How much land all along your fences and other division lines produces nothing useful? How many fights and quarrels over your division lines? How often, in order to do a little work, you have to go back and forth with your little narrow machinery, drawn by animal flesh? and how often do you have to go over the same place before you have your crop scarcely planted? How much labor and land you require for the production of feed for your draught animals? You have to do almost as much for them as they do for you, and that is indeed very much. How poorly, as a whole, you feed and shelter your stock from the cold and other inclemency of the weather. Your little straw sheds are full of filth and snow. Your stables are not unfrequently one thickness of inch boards, with large cracks between the boards. Your sheep often have no other shelter than a fence or a little grove; their wool is torn out by the snow and ice that is frozen in it. Your poultry, during a winter’s storm, is sometimes frozen fast to the perch, and have often not a foot of bare ground, where they can procure the sand and gravel necessary for their digestion. How much more food your animals, that are so poorly sheltered and cared for, require to keep up the animal heat which should be kept up by proper care and warm shelter.

“How densely your population huddles together in your 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 your 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. Your gardens are rudely laid out, and mostly full of weeds and poultry, and sometimes hogs and cattle. Your orchards are planted with a few varieties of trees which often bear a better crop of caterpillars than fruit; your shrubbery is largely choked to death in some fence corner or under some larger trees, for want of sunshine and moisture. Your lawn is often an ash-pile, and not unfrequently a rubbish-heap.”