of the head official; in the two dwellings of the other house eighteen persons, at a pinch, can be accommodated (in four rooms and two kitchens); but the estate has always 35, and at harvest-time, like now, about 50 laborers! And some are already married and will require dwellings of their own as soon as possible! The two little houses will bear on a memorial tablet the name of Mr. Halperin, who has presented them to the Jewish National Fund; who will present the National Fund with an unmarried laborers' home for its first settlement farm at Merchavia? Volunteers to the front! The brave fellows who, down there, on the frontiers of civilization, look their enemies daily in the eye—malaria and the guns of the Arabs—who are laying the foundations of the new nationality of which you dream with their sweat and blood, have certainly a right that you should provide them with a home worthy of human beings."
To the possibilities of the Soil and to his faith in the ultimate success of the undertaking, Dr. Oppenheimer testifies as follows:
"From the manager's shed, which hangs close over the steep side of the hill, one has an uninterrupted view southwards to the hills far, far away, which form the first step to the mountain-range of Judaea. And there, at the first glance, one has an example that shows more clearly than all lectures how grateful this land proves when it receives what is due it. Mr. Dyk, instructor and farmer, who has raised these men and this soil after nearly two years' superhuman labor and amid almost superhuman privations, from the roughest state, shows me a field with vetches. The western half stands twice as high and thrice as thick as the eastern (and it has actually produced a crop almost three times as large). The entire field was uniformly prepared for cultivation and tilled during the period of growth, but the stable dung sufficed only for one part. It is the same everywhere, in the wheat and barley fields as with the beans. Wherever one re-
stores even a little force to the land that was exploited and robbed thousands of years ago, it rewards one with a manifold harvest. And that inspires us with hope in ultimate success. \Ve still incur a loss upon this large farm laid out “on a green pasture,” which must be carried on with inexperienced laborers in a new land, and with methods yet untried here, for it also involves a heavy expenditure (e. g., for the vigilance service and backsheesh) on account of the wildness of the country and the neighbors, aggravated by the recent state of war, and it is often exposed to serious loss through theft and attacks, whilst all the work must be carried out by highly paid Jewish men, even such as women and children could do. And yet, when once the rotation has taken place, when each piece of land has once received the fertilizing stuff from the stable, the harvest will present a different appearance, and it ıs hoped that the balance-sheet will also look better. For the present we may reckon that the expenditure will grow less from year to year and the income will increase from year to year. We must only persevere, work and not despair! If we are to succeed in the colossal task of finding for the wandering Jew a new home, a land in which his withered staff can again take root and put forth buds and blossoms, we can succeed only in one way: only where the soil is manured with the sweat of the peasant will the land become nationalized. And only there, where the co-operative association owns the land which it cultivates, is there a guarantee that it is not Arab sweat that manures and wins the land. Everybody knows this who has travelled even perfunctorily through the country. And whoever does not wish that planter’s colonies should arise in Galilee too, in which the fellah works almost alone, from which the colonist’s children flee to all parts of the world, and in which there is little more that is Jewish than the names on the title-deeds— he must help to <arrv this first ex-