BUSINESS COOPERATION 275 



machines manufactured cheaply; but they could not prevent 

 their alert competitors from getting control of improvements 

 which threw their machines out of the market, and they lacked 

 the necessary capital to withstand the intense competition to 

 which they were subjected by combinations of regular manu- 

 facturers. The system of selling without agents also placed 

 the Grange machines at a disadvantage. If a machine failed 

 to work properly or if the farmer did not know how to run it, 

 there was no one for him to call upon for adjustment of the 

 machine or for instruction. These were services which had 

 been performed by the local agents under the old system of selling. 

 As a consequence, the Grange machines sometimes got the reputa- 

 tion of being unsatisfactory when all that was needed was a 

 little adjustment or instruction to the operator. 



The farmers might have had some chance of success if they 

 had gone into business operations on a small scale at the start, 

 as did the " Rochdale Pioneers " in England, and gradually 

 expanded the enterprises as their experience increased. But 

 a few early successes, together with the marvelous growth of 

 the Grange, turned their heads and they rushed pell-mell into 

 all sorts of business schemes without considering where the 

 capital and business ability to carry them out were to come 

 from. The incomes of the state and national granges furnished 

 capital for many of the schemes, and these incomes were large 

 in the early years; but they came principally from dispensations 

 for new granges and could not by any possibility continue at 

 the same rate. The different schemes, moreover, were generally 

 so interwoven one with another, that a disaster to one involved 

 the failure of all the others and the collapse of the whole house 

 of cards. 



If the Grangers were not willing to let their business plans 

 develop gradually while they were gaining experience, it would 

 seem as if they might at least have availed themselves of the 

 experience of cooperators elsewhere. Many of them, of course, 

 had never heard of the English cooperators, but even those 

 who had were inclined to believe that their own home-made 

 theories were better than any principles which had been worked 



