ORGANIZATION 73 



sentiment which the railroads were able to work up against it 

 were potent causes for the rapid decline of the order in a number 

 of northwestern states. 1 



The one feature which probably had more influence than any 

 other in building up the great membership of the order was the 

 idea of cooperative business, and this feature also contributed 

 more than anything else to the almost total collapse of the 

 Grange throughout the West. One by one, the extensive 

 cooperative enterprises established by the western state granges 

 went to pieces, leaving behind a burden of discredit and indebted- 

 ness which almost destroyed the order. Some state granges, 

 notably those of Nebraska and Arkansas, were unable to weather 

 the storm and surrendered their organizations; while district 

 and subordinate granges disbanded for fear of being held respon- 

 sible for the debts of the state granges. In other states Iowa, 

 for example a few of the faithful kept up the state grange and 

 strove to reinvigorate the order; but even to the present day 

 it has been impossible to make the Grange flourish in those 

 states where it suffered the severest financial disasters. 2 



OTHER AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS 



The order of Patrons of Husbandry was the largest, most com- 

 prehensive, and most thoroughly organized of the agencies which 

 the farmers used in their efforts to improve their position ma- 

 terially, politically, socially, and intellectually, through organized 

 cooperation. It was not, however, the only agency which this 

 movement called into existence or adapted to its purposes. 

 For many years isolated farmers' clubs had existed in numerous 

 localities throughout the United States, usually in or near 

 some of the large cities; but their attention had been confined 

 almost wholly to topics of practical agriculture. Early in the 

 seventies this germ was taken up by a large number of farmers 

 imbued with the rising spirit of organized effort, and the result 



1 Aiken, The Grange, 14, 29. 



2 Nation, xix. 358 (December 3, 1874); California Patron, June 13, 1877, p. 5; 

 Pierson, in Popular Science Monthly, xxxii. 368-371 (January, 1888); Paine, Granger 

 Movement in Illinois, 8, 43. 



