BUSINESS COOPERATION 253 



cooperation beyond making arrangements for securing ferti- 

 lizers at reduced prices. 1 In Kentucky and Tennessee, however, 

 more extensive operations were undertaken by the order. The 

 Kentucky State Grange rented a warehouse in Louisville and 

 put it in charge of an agent on a commission basis, part of the 

 rent of the building being defrayed by leasing space in it to 

 manufacturers for the exhibition of machinery. In 1875 the 

 agency was reported as doing a business of between two and 

 three hundred thousand dollars. Plans were then laid for chang- 

 ing the agency to a salary basis and for raising a fund of twenty- 

 five thousand dollars by the sale of bonds. The Tennessee 

 Patrons shared in the work of the Kentucky agency for a while 

 and commercial firms in New Orleans, Memphis, and Atlanta 

 also received recognition from the state grange. In 1875, 

 however, the executive committee was ordered to arrange for 

 the establishment of an independent state agency, with sub- 

 ordinate agents for each of the three grand divisions of the state. 

 In neither of these states did the business ventures have any 

 lasting success, and their failure discredited the order there 

 for many years. 2 



The state granges of Alabama and Mississippi adopted the 

 plan of choosing established firms in the various commercial 

 centers of the state or neighboring states and placing them 

 under bonds to act as Grange agents. The Alabama State 

 Grange had, in addition, a similar agent in New York, and the 

 Mississippi Grange, one in Liverpool, England, to look after 

 consignments of cotton. 3 The executive committee of the 

 Georgia State Grange made arrangements with the various 



1 Virginia State Grange, Proceedings, i (1873-74); Illinois State Grange, Pro- 

 ceedings, iv. 17 (1875); North Carolina State Grange, Proceedings, ii-iv (1875-77); 

 South Carolina State Grange, Minute Book (Ms.); Prairie Farmer, xlv. 411 (De- 

 cember 26, 1874). 



2 Tennessee State Grange, Proceedings, ii (1875); Illinois State Grange, Pro- 

 ceedings, iv. 17 (1875); National Grange, Proceedings, xv. 37, 43 (1881); Prairie 

 Farmer, xlv. 411 (December 26, 1874); Randall, in Johns Hopkins University, 

 Studies, vi. 505. 



3 Alabama State Grange, Proceedings, ii, iii (1874, 1875); Mississippi State 

 Grange, Proceedings, v (1875); Prairie Farmer, xlv. 411 (December 26, 1874); 

 Hawkins, " The Grange in the South," in Allen, Labor and Capital, 487. 



