370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been largely put in practice. After a prolonged stay, the comniis- 

 sioner to England made bis report, bringing from English co-operators 

 proposals for dealings on a grand scale. The Grange was to sub- 

 scribe one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars toward the neces- 

 sary shipping-depots, and all trade was to be carried on directly with 

 England through a company to be known as the "Anglo-American 

 Co-operative Company," The Englishmen followed the matter up by 

 sending three men to the United States to confer with the Executive 

 Committee, After looking over the ground, they proposed to erect 

 their own warehouses at four seaboard cities, prepared to supply every 

 article of clothing and every farm-implement needed by Patrons at a 

 discount of ten per cent, and to receive in exchange every variety of 

 farm-[uoduce at the market price, provided that the Grange would 

 concentrate its purchases upon them. But by this time the ardor of 

 the Patrons had been cooled by reverses in local experiments, and the 

 Executive Committee was unable to make the necessary guarantees. 

 The National Grange's efiForts now subsided into protests and warn- 

 ings against the commission and joint-stock ventures so common in 

 the order, and pleas for the Rochdale system. Many enterprises were 

 undertaken upon this basis, proving, if not highly profitable, at least 

 not disastrous. Some are still in existence, notably the " Texas Co- 

 operative Association." But, in general, the warning came too late. 

 The Patrons had been too impatient to grasp the anticipated gains, 

 and had burned their fingers. 



The step from co-operation in the National, to co-operation in the 

 State and District, Granges is one from theory tinged by practice, to 

 practice pure and simple. The craze for co-operation was like that 

 for gold in 1848. The fii'st and simplest step was to a))point a pro- 

 fusion of buying and selling agents, usually on salaries from the State 

 Granges. But a few losses by mismanagement and rascality were 

 enough to deter the farmers from trusting their produce to selling- 

 agents. The system of agencies for buying only was not open to the 

 same risks, but its utility differed in different States. For Iowa, where 

 every farmer raised grain and w^anted plows and rea]>ers, an agent 

 could buy to great advantage. The Patrons there gave figures to show 

 that they saved fifty thousand dollars in one year on plows and cul- 

 tivators alone. In the same year they bought fifteen hundred sewing- 

 machines, at a reduction of forty-five per cent from retail prices. 

 Local dealers were driven out of business. In New York, on the other 

 hand, where the farmers are dairymen, grain-growers, nurserymen, 

 and hop-growers, a State buying-agency was found useless, and was 

 abandoned, after some hard experience, for a system of district agencies. 

 These have effected saving in some instances, in others proved unprofit- 

 able, partly owing to the outcroppings of mean human nature among 

 those most clamorous for the benefits. The " State Women's Dress 

 Agency," in New York city, lasted longer, but, strangely enough, the 



