HE WHO SOWS, MUST ALSO REAP. 183 



Very well, suppose I am a commission merchant, I bay all I can, 

 say I buy two thirds of the yield, that is of the surplus, the remain 

 ing one third is held by the farmer; the fact becomes known to me. 

 I am aware there is a surplus in the countiy. Then what do I do ? 

 I offer only my own butter for sale, while that which I hold in trust 

 for the farmer, on consignment, I keep in the background, and do 

 not offer for sale. I dispose of mine at a fair figure, and when I 

 have sold all I have of my own, I then offer yours. But the butter 

 market having been supplied, yours will form the surplus the re 

 sult must be as it was last year a tumble in the prices. The one 

 is sold at a good figure, while the other must suffer his to be slaugh 

 tered; as we are all human, and self-preservation being the first law 

 of nature, it is hardly necessary to say that the party slaughtered is 

 the farmer. It has been my study to look up the evils of this sys 

 tem of trade. They are necessarily evils of a system perhaps there 

 is no one who, under the same circumstances, would not take ad 

 vantage of these business opportunities; and, therefore, we should 

 not attack the persons engaged in it half so much as we should at 

 tack the system itself. 



The remedy for all this is simple enough. It lies alone within 

 ourselves within the Grange, I mean. To this body, and to this 

 body alone, will devolve this duty of transforming this great evil 

 into a better and healthier mode of business. It lies simply in this: 

 the farmer must become his own business man; he must be his own 

 business manager; he must be his own salesman; he must, not only 

 sow, but he must reap; and he must not cease to garner his prod 

 ucts till he is done, and he is not done when he places his golden 

 grain in his barn, but he shall have done when he has reaped the 

 reward of his toil by a proper remuneration and exchange of his 

 products for the necessaries of his life and household. No one can 

 be so good an agent for the farmer as the farmer himself; or at 

 least he should be the creature of the farmer, and not, as is now the 

 case, the farmer the creature of the agent. My idea is, that the 

 State Grange should own the business, and it is the duty of every 

 Patron to patronize it to the fullest extent possible. 



Second Annual Keport of Brothers Jolley, Stiles and Wright, 

 Committee on Irrigation: 



While the past year has been one of unexampled prosperity in 

 most parts of the State, it has also demonstrated tne absolute neces 

 sity of the immediate adoption of some system of irrigation, which 

 will enable hundreds of the small farmers of this State to retain 

 their homes, which they cannot do, unless their farms afford them 

 the means of support for their families. 



The San Joaquiu Valley, which seems destined to be the Garden 

 of the Continent, and especially that part west of the San Joaquin 

 River, has suffered to an alarming extent in the last year from 

 drought, and we feel safe in calculating the loss at sufficient to con 

 struct a canal from Tulare Lake to Aiitioch. 



In accordance with the instructions of this State Grange, and the 

 Preamble and Resolutions adopted by this Grange at its last session, 



