Fruitlands (1843)

AUTHOR: Alcott, Amos Bronson and Charles Lane

PUBLICATION: The Dial. Vol. IV no. 1 (July 1843): 135-136.
https://archive.org/details/dial03riplgoog/page/134/mode/2up

The bulk of this short article comprises an extract from a letter submitted by Alcott and Lane, “dated from their Farm, Fruitlands, in Harvard, Massachusetts" (135), The date inscribed is 10 June 1843. The extract has been selected by the editor, published as “Intelligence,” and described as a “communication” (135). The letter is not reproduced in full, nor is the precise authorship of its parts clear. The letter describes the initiation of the project at Fruitlands, to create an ethical vegan community.

KEYWORDS: food, diet, animals, Fruitlands, spirituality, land usage, environmentalism, Transcendentalism

 

SUMMARY (Deborah Madsen):
Alcott and Lane describe the circumstances in which they obtained the land on which the community is established. A highly lyrical, pastoral description of the topography and natural features of the landscape provides the basis for plans to develop the farm buildings, in order to create greater harmony with the bucolic landscape, for "Here we prosecute our effort to initiate a Family in harmony with the primitive instincts in man” (135). The community is said to comprise 10 people, five of them the children of the founders (Alcott's daughters Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth and Abigail, and Lane's son.)

The description of the project emphasises that a particular kind of farming, informed by a radical refusal of animal exploitation, is intended. They write, “It is intended to adorn the pastures with orchards, and to supersede ultimately the labor of the plough and cattle, by the spade and the pruning knife. ... Ordinary secular farming is not our object. Fruit, grain, pulse, garden plants and herbs, flax and other vegetable products for food, raiment, and domestic uses, receiving assiduous attention, afford at once ample manual occupation, and chaste supplies for the bodily needs” (136). The proper feeding of the body serves the improvement of the mind  and the spirit: “The inner nature of every member of the Family is at no time neglected. A constant leaning on the living spirit within the soul should consecrate every talent to holy uses, cherishing the widest charities. The choice Library (of which a partial catalogue was given in Dial No. XII) is accessible to all who are desirous of perusing these records of piety and wisdom. Our plan contemplates all such disciplines, cultures, and habits, as evidently conduce to the purifying and edifying of the inmates. Pledged to the spirit alone, the founders can anticipate no hasty or numerous accession to their numbers. The kingdom of peace is entered only through the gates of self-denial and abandonment; and felicity is the test and the reward of obedience to the unswerving law of Love” (136).

 

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