MATURING PLANS. 127 



the only qualifications for the unity of brother with 

 brother. 



At last, he asked himself the question, Why should not 

 the farmers, both North and South, unite in the same man 

 ner as the Masons, who have clung together for hundreds 

 of years, for social and educational purposes, with a view to 

 promote their common interests ? 



Why not ? was the answer echoed back. And now the 

 solution was reached. All that remained was to mould the. 

 germ-idea into practical, tangible shape. To do this, would 

 require constant energy, untiring labor, and much self- 

 sacrifice. 



MATURING PLANS. 



The future founder of the Order was not a man to shrink 

 from the responsibility. During the remaining months of 

 his stay in the South, he mentioned the project to prominent 

 gentlemen whom he met. It was received with favor. The 

 only difficulty was, with the means at his disposal, to unite 

 individual to individual, and mind to mind, in the working 

 out of plans that should harmonize conflicting views, and 

 enable them to make the conception of his brain a beneficent 

 reality, for the elevation of the^ masses, through the sweat 

 of whose faces the nations eat their bread. 



Mr. Kelley returned to Washington, and from thence to 

 Minnesota, where he spent the succeeding summer, still 

 revolving the project in his mind. In November, 1866, he 

 returned to Washington, to take a clerkship in the Post- 

 Office Department. He now began to move seriously toward 

 developing the idea, that, within the last eighteen months, 

 has spread over the entire West and South like a prairie 

 fire, and is now making rapid progress, not only in the East, 

 but even in Canada* 



