TRAINING IN AMERICA

Since the present group on hachshara established itself as a kibbutz baderech, a group on the way to settlement, it has accomplished certain concrete objectives.

The progress made during the summer and fall of 1944 can be noted by physical landmarks on the farm. As always, the plans for the seasons were maximum. Our work program included building, purchasing of livestock, expanding our egg route, and field program.

The building plan was ambitious and was carried through enthusiastically. Finishing the new barn, we added an adjoining milk room. A long-needed machinery shed was erected and used during the summer months to house the members of Camp Avodah.

The purchase of nine Guernsey cows and one heifer increased our herd to eleven milkers and six calves. Subsequently, we started to sell our milk to a local dairy at a fair profit.

Unfortunately, the planting program was much impeded by the summer's drought. The vegetable garden, in particular, suffered severe damage. Nevertheless, we canned about three thousand jars of our own produce. Corn was put up for silage in a temporary silo. The grain harvest was fair, and the hay harvest—three cuttings—was good.

Our retail egg route in Trenton was expanded from three to four days, from three to four hundred customers. The chief source of our income, poultry, suffered from the hurricane that hit this section of the country.

Culturally, our achievements were less significant, partly because of the press of the season's work. Camp Avodah was our primary achievement. This second season, we found Camp Avodah a most successful project as well as a most effective method of acquainting Jewish youth with Hechalutz and its institutions. Approximately twenty-five campers spent the summer with us and left reluctantly. The study of Hebrew was not neglected, as it had been in previous busy seasons; and members of the farm made considerable progress in their study of the language.

Plans for the future include two primary goals: (1) sending certain members of our group to study further much-needed skills, and (2) activating the members of the Kibbutz Aliya of Habonim to the point where they will be able to come to the farm and take over responsibility within a year.

We can now begin to feel that aliya is approaching. The present members of the group on the farm want an opportunity to supplement their agricultural experience with additional training, either in specific agricultural fields or in other technical ones. Those who have maintained the farm through these war years want the assurance that others are ready to follow them, that, as soon as passage to Palestine is possible, they will be able to leave knowing that the farm is fully manned here. This reserve of chalutzim, this assurance of continuity, rests in the two hundred members of Kibbutz Aliya.

SHOSHANA KLIERS, Cream Ridge, 1944