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158 CHAPTERS IN RURAL PROGRESS 



The fundamental obstacle to members selling 

 together on the general market is that, in most 

 cases, all members do not have the same things 

 to sell. A co-operative creamery, for instance, 

 is organized on the basis of a product — butter; 

 the Grange is organized on the basis of manhood 

 — and each man may have his crop or stock 

 specialty. This difficulty, though grave, is not, 

 perhaps, insuperable, and will tend to disappear 

 as membership enlarges. But it is only fair to 

 state that, so far, the Grange has not been able 

 to devise any successful plan for co-operative 

 selling, applicable on a large scale, 

 s There are two or three features that deserve 

 further mention. One is the position of the 

 family in the Grange. It is stated that the 

 Grange was the first secret organization to place 

 woman on a plane of perfect equality with man. 

 In every association each female member has a 

 vote. Woman has four special offices assigned 

 to her sex, and is eligible to any office in the 

 gift of the order. The majority of subordinate 

 lecturers are women; many subordinate and 

 even Pomona masters are women; Michigan's 

 state lecturer is a woman who is revolutionizing 

 the educational work of the order in that state; 

 while Minnesota had for some years a competent 



