PRACTICAL CO-OPERATION. 91 



As an illustration of what the agricultural class can do if they will 

 toward helping themselves, and by the means of practical working 

 together for their rights and their welfare, we will call attention to the 

 accomplished fact of our experiment station. The Legislature of 

 1885 did not dare to refuse the tremendous pressure of demand. 

 The previous Legislature put the farmers off with an old played-out 

 law of Masachusetts. It gave them a stone where they asked for 

 bread. From every grange, subordinate county and State, from every 

 farmers' club, from ever}^ agricultural society, from ever}^ farmers' 

 institute and from every post-office almost, came long petitions. 



This fact teaches also another lesson : farmers must respect them- 

 selves and demand their rights, and if necessar}', ask long, loud and 

 persistently for what is of vital importance to their interests. 

 Farmers must ring their own bells, and blow their own horns ! As 

 a class, farmers have too long furnished wind to blow everybody's 

 horn but their own. 



Again, another noted illustration of what the farmers can accom- 

 plish when they make up their minds and put on their war paint : 

 On the statute books of the Nation stands to-daj^ the bogus butter 

 law, the outcome of a long and fierce battle with fraud and with cap- 

 ital. Somebody might say, "O, that is only a little two-cent con- 

 cern." But there is millions in it for all that, and better than all 

 else is, that it is a victory for the farmers. It shows the}- are terrible 

 in their might when aroused in defence of assailed rights. It shows- 

 the}' are as puissant as when at old Lexington and Concord 



"The embattled farmers stood 



And fired the shot heard round the world." 



We must bear in mind, also, that when the railroad men, the lum- 

 bermen, the fishermen, or the sportsmen want a law, or a measure- 

 made a law that they deem of benefit or necessity to them, that class 

 interest combines and persistently push their interest. It only re- 

 mains for farmers to learn the lesson, and having learned, remember 

 and practice. Effort will accomplish what fault-finding never will. 



Now I wish to sa}' a few words in regard to the grange. It is a 

 school of benefit to both old and young. It is the best and most 

 practical cooperative organization we have among us. It is based 

 upon farming and designed especially for farmers. It is the only order 

 that goes with us in our ever3'-da3' life on the farm. Its ritualistic 

 work, tinged all through with Christian principles, is drawn from everj'- 



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