It may be taken as a rule that where the communes have retained a wide sphere of functions, so as to be living parts of the national organism, and where they have not been reduced to sheer misery, they never fail to take good care of their lands.  Accordingly the communal estates in Switzerland strikingly contrast with the miserable state of “commons” in this country.  The communal forests in the Vaud and the Valais are admirably managed, in conformity with the rules of modern forestry.  Elsewhere the “strips” of communal fields, which change owners under the system of re-allotment, are very well manured, especially as there is no lack of meadows and cattle.  The high level meadows are well kept as a rule, and the rural roads are excellent.(21) And when we admire the Swiss chalet, the mountain road, the peasants’ cattle, the terraces of vineyards, or the school-house in Switzer land, we must keep in mind that without the timber for the chalet being taken from the communal woods and the stone from the communal quarries, without the cows being kept on the communal meadows, and the roads being made and the school-houses built by communal work, there would be little to admire.

It hardly need be said that a great number of mutual-aid habits and customs continue to persist in the Swiss villages.  The evening gatherings for shelling walnuts, which take place in turns in each household; the evening parties for sewing the dowry of the girl who is going to marry; the calling of “aids” for building the houses and taking in the crops, as well as for all sorts of work which may be required by one of the commoners; the custom of exchanging children from one canton to the other, in order to make them learn two languages, French and German; and so on—­all these are quite habitual;(22) while, on the other side, divers modern requirements are met in the same spirit.  Thus in Glarus most of the Alpine meadows have been sold during a time of calamity; but the communes still continue to buy field land, and after the newly-bought fields have been left in the possession of separate commoners for ten, twenty, or thirty years, as the case might be, they return to the common stock, which is re-allotted according to the needs of all.  A great number of small associations are formed to produce some of the necessaries for life—­bread, cheese, and wine—­by common work, be it only on a limited scale; and agricultural co-operation altogether spreads in Switzerland with the greatest ease.  Associations formed between ten to thirty peasants, who buy meadows and fields in common, and cultivate them as co-owners, are of common occurrence; while dairy associations for the sale of milk, butter, and cheese are organized everywhere.  In fact, Switzerland was the birthplace of that form of co-operation.  It offers, moreover, an immense field for the study of all sorts of small and large societies, formed for the satisfaction of all sorts of modern wants.  In certain parts of Switzerland one finds in almost every village a number of associations—­for protection from fire, for boating, for maintaining the quays on the shores of a lake, for the supply of water, and so on; and the country is covered with societies of archers, sharpshooters, topographers, footpath explorers, and the like, originated from modern militarism.