SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL FEATURES 293 



in agriculture came from actual or prospective students it seems 

 to have been met in most cases. 



THE ADVANCEMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



A large part of the educational activity of the Grange related 

 to technical agriculture and here it was on a ground which had 

 been cultivated in part by previous institutions agricultural 

 papers, boards of agriculture, farmers* clubs, and county or 

 state fairs. The Grange did not seek to supplant any of these 

 institutions but rather to encourage and supplement them. 

 The grange meeting naturally gave opportunity for informal 

 exchanges of experience between practical farmers; the ones 

 who had been most successful in certain lines were able, and 

 generally willing, to explain their methods to less successful 

 brethren; and thus each was able to profit by the experience of 

 his neighbor. In large numbers of granges, more formal methods 

 of agricultural education were undertaken. A grange in South 

 Carolina arranged for each member to take a record of the 

 kinds and quantities of fertilizers used and the results obtained; 

 other granges offered prizes for the best specimen of a certain 

 product or the highest yield on an acre; and in nearly every 

 grange formal papers were read on technical agricultural subjects. 

 The women, likewise, held discussions, made reports, and read 

 papers on various topics of household economy. 1 



The holding of agricultural fairs was especially encouraged 

 by the order and in many instances they took place under its 

 auspices. Thus a local grange in Mississippi held a fair as early 

 as 1872 at which agricultural products and agricultural machinery 

 were exhibited, 2 and a successful state grange fair was held in 

 Alabama in 187 5. 3 Fairs were established under the auspices 



1 National Grange, Proceedings, xiii. 25, 101 (1879); North Carolina State 

 Grange, Proceedings, ii. 19-22, iii. 16, 30-32, 35, iv. 11-16, 23-26 (1875-77); New 

 Hampshire State Grange, Proceedings, vii (1880); American Farmer, vii. 147 (April, 

 1878); Martin, Grange Movement, 468; Shaw, in Johns Hopkins University, 

 Studies, vi. 335. See also above, p. 286, note i. 



2 Prairie Farmer, xliii. 308 (September 28, 1872). 



3 Alabama State Grange, Proceedings, ii. 9, 12, 14, 19, iii. 18, 38 (1874, 1875). 

 Mr. T. M. Owen, Carrollton, Alabama, has a copy of the Programme and Schedule 

 of Premiums of the Alabama State Grange Fair of 1875. 



