TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART V 471 



The Grange is not without good results in teaching better business 

 methods for the farmer. It has taught him so far as possible to buy and 

 sell for cash, and to sell less grain and more livestock. That this has 

 been the wisest course is borne out by past experience. The Grange has 

 cultivated close relations between the farmer and the manufacturer that 

 undue profits may be eliminated, and much good has come to all farmers 

 tliiu this effort. 



While The Grange does not teach partisan politics it does impress its 

 members with the responsibility of citizenship and to do all in their 

 power to secure purer politics and to see that the interest of the farm is 

 fairly represented. The continued and just demands of The Grange 

 have met with no small degree of success and in about every instance 

 has been the only agent the farmer has had to present his claims to see 

 they were granted to him. Scarcely a law has been passed for many 

 years in behalf of the farmer that The Grange was not foremost to 

 champion it and oftentimes the only one. 



If the farmer hopes to keep pace with other callings in the race of life 

 he must travel at the same rate of speed. The farmer should see that 

 his labor and farm produce should go for the benefit of his family. 

 In short to introduce the best business methods in the distribution and 

 sale of the products of the farm. The farmers must depend upon them- 

 selves to do this work. They cannot expect others to aid them, even by 

 suggestion. They must adopt and apply the same business methods used 

 and so successfully applied in all other lines of successful business. To 

 accomplish this organization, thought, energy, knowledge and business 

 qualifications must be wisely applied. In the past farmers have allowed 

 others to organize business methods and do the thinking for them. So 

 long as this practice is continued the farmer will fail to realize his just 

 share of what the harvest yields. Any people or any business that per- 

 mits or allows those with whom they deal to fix the price of what they sell 

 or buy, will become servants of the one who fixes the price. 



We are not unmindful of the great interest that business and profes- 

 sional men have taken in the welfare of the American farmer during the 

 last few years, and we realize that they are entitled to great credit for 

 their willingness to assist the farmers with suggestions and money, urging 

 them to apply more scientific and economic methods in the production of 

 their farm crops, and to the end that they may purchase these crops more 

 abundantly and cheaply, in their interest, as well as in the interest of the 

 general public. 



For many years the government, the business man and the farmer have 

 joined hands in working out more successful and economical methods of 

 farming, hoping that the -farmer may be able to produce more abundantly 

 and more cheaply in the interests of all the people. 



That is true co-operation, the kind of co-operation that benefits all the 

 people. Then why not continue this kind of co-operation along business 

 lines, and ask the business and professional men to co-operate with the 

 farmers and the government, to make a thoro investigation of business 

 conditions, to ascertain if the business of distribution of farm products 

 is done as scientifically and economically as it might be; to investigate 



