CLIMATE OF THE LAKE REGION. 373 



salary was dropped entirely, and the secretary's reduced to 8G00. A 

 bill for services from Ilerr Prenzel, who had been working for the 

 order in Germany since 1875, was dismissed with little ceremony. The 

 National Grange was not poor, having always kept about $50,000 to 

 its credit invested in Government bonds, but it had given up the idea 

 of converting the w'orld. But the low-w^ater mark had been reached. 

 Cash receipts in 1880 increased two hundred per cent over those in 

 1879. More Granges had been organized than in any year since 1874. 

 The growth was especially marked in New England. The State 

 Grange of Connecticut was revived after a dormancy of six years, and 

 Maine began to claim more Grangers in proportion to population than 

 any other State. At the session of the National Grange for 1885, held 

 in Boston, delegates were present from all the States and Territories 

 but eight. It is not easy to explain this growth, as there seems to be 

 no great principle underlying it. Some New England Patrons are agi- 

 tating free trade, but that can not be called a Grange issue, as Penn- 

 sylvania Patrons want protection extended to farm-products. The 

 harmless practice of holding great fairs is gaining ground. At a 

 recent one in Pennsylvania, lasting a week, the local paper says : 

 " Over fifty thousand people were present on one day, and the sale of 

 machinery direct to the farmers ran up into the hundreds of thousands 

 of dollars. Never w^ere manufacturers and consumers brought into 

 more direct and friendly relations." This is, perhaps, the latest de- 

 velopment of Grange anti-middleman ideas. 



The most enthusiastic Grangers at present are the farmers' wives 

 and daughters, who are attracted by the social opportunities. In fact, 

 the order seems to be going back to the educational and social basis 

 of the founders, and its boasts are no longer co-operative ventures so 

 much as Grange buildings and libraries, and the Grange schools that 

 exist in several States. In these directions, and in what it has done to 

 heal sectional differences between North and South, the Grange can 

 boast its best achievements. 



CLIMATE OF THE LAKE EEGION.* 



PERIODICAL CHANGES. 



Et bela hdbbaed. 



CONNECTED with our considerations upon the climate is a sub- 

 ject which has excited great interest since the first settlement of 

 the country, and about which much has been written, for the most 

 part vaguely. I allude to the variations in the levels of the lake- 

 waters. Many causes contribute to create a perpetual fluctuation, or 

 rise and fall, in these inland seas. 



* From " Memorials of a Ilalf-Century." New York and London. G. P. Tutnam's 

 Sons. 1S87. 



