8 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



some of the more progressive were thinking of turning their 

 attention to other lines, but the transition was delayed by the 

 remarkable rise in the price of wheat in 1854-55, usually 

 attributed to the Crimean War, and again by the prevailing 

 high prices of the Civil War period. During the latter part 

 of the sixties, and the early seventies, depressed conditions 

 returned and the competition from the virgin wheat fields of 

 the farther West finally forced the long delayed transition to a 

 more diversified and soil-saving agriculture. Meanwhile the 

 farmers of Illinois, Wisconsin, and parts of Iowa and Minnesota, 

 burdened with debt and almost despairing, but unable to see 

 that their own inertia and lack of progressiveness were partly 

 at fault, began to look about them for the causes of their mis- 

 fortune. They fastened the blame upon the bankers, the rail- 

 ways, the legislatures, the tariff, and monopolies, and their 

 grievances along these lines were legion and some of them well 

 founded. These are matters, however, of a national rather 

 than sectional character, and will be treated later on. 



Agriculture on a large scale was a new industry in California, 

 for it was not until the gold fever began to die down that people 

 realized that the soil of the state was laden with other than 

 mineral wealth. Oregon, on the other hand, had been from the 

 first an agricultural state and had helped to furnish California 

 with her supply of cereals, a large part of which also came from 

 the prairie states and Chile. In 1862 California first produced 

 enough wheat for her own consumption and from that time on 

 the increase in cereal production was rapid, until by 1880 the 

 total crop in the state had reached forty-five million bushels. 

 The rise of a great staple wheat crop in California involved the 

 farmers in a peculiar problem of distribution. Because of the 

 geographical position of the state, seven-eighths of the surplus 

 was shipped directly to Liverpool and the price was supposed 

 to be regulated by the Liverpool quotation and the cost of 

 shipment. The business of shipping this grain was not in the 

 hands of the farmers but of commission merchants who bought 

 up the crop, stored it in their warehouses, and shipped it to 

 Liverpool. It was not long before the farmers reached the 



