“Mr. Alcott would not allow the land to be manured, which he regarded as a base and corrupting and unjust mode of forcing nature. He made also a distinction between vegetables which aspired or grew into the air, as wheat, apples, and other fruits, and the base products which grew downwards into the earth, such as potatoes,[8] beets, radishes, and the like. These latter he would not allow to be used. The bread of the Community he himself made of unbolted flour, and sought to render it palatable by forming the loaves into the shapes of animals and other pleasant images. He was very strict, rather despotic in his rule of the Community, and some of the members have told me they were nearly starved to death there; nay, absolutely would have perished with hunger if they had not furtively gone among the surrounding farmers and begged for food.
This was a mistake on Mr. Carter’s part, as they ate potatoes freely.
“One of the Fruitlanders took it into his head that clothes were an impediment to spiritual growth, and that the light of day was equally pernicious. He accordingly secluded himself in his room in a state of nature during the day, and only went out at night for exercise, with a single white cotton garment reaching from his neck to his knees.
“Samuel Larned lived one whole year on crackers, and the next year exclusively on apples. He went to Brook Farm after the collapse of the Fruitlands Community, and when that also failed he went South, married a lady who owned a number of slaves, and settled there as a Unitarian minister.”
In this same article Mr. Carter asserts that Fourierism brought Brook Farm into disrepute at the end, and that a large wooden phalanstery, in which members had invested all their means, took fire and burned to the ground just as it was completed. Upon this catastrophe the association scattered in 1847. Nathaniel Hawthorne lost all his savings in the enterprise. While he was at Brook Farm he looked after the pigsties.
In contrast to this is the full account of the object and aim of Fruitlands.
The following letter on The Consociate Family Life was written to A. Brooke of Oakland, Ohio, and published in the _Herald of Freedom_, September 8, 1843:—