434 AGRICULTURAL COMMUNITIES. 



in the somewhat intemperate abuse of this very essential mem 

 ber of the social body, has failed to recognize his origin. Only 

 of the excess should he justly complain. 



According to the census of 1870, there are in the United 

 States 12,505,000 bread-earners, who give food, shelter and rai 

 ment to the 39,000,000 of inhabitants. Every bread-earner has 

 to feed a little over three mouths. Of these, 5,922,000 are en 

 gaged in agriculture, strictly; 1,765,000 in other rural trades 

 and callings, such as blacksmithing, carpentering and the like, 

 making, with their food dependents, 23,830,000 souls out of 

 the 39,000,000. The manufacturers, including operatives and 

 servants, earn bread for 1,117,000. Commerce, including mer 

 chants, shop-keepers, sailors, clerks, , peddlers, bar-keepers, 

 etc., earn bread for 2,256,000. Eailroad and expressmen earn 

 bread for 595,000. Miners for 472,000. 



So it comes to this : while agriculture and mechanics fill ten 

 times as many mouths as commerce, twenty times as many as 

 manufactures, forty times as many as railroads, and fifty times 

 as many as mining, yet the least of these, by combination, co 

 operation and management, exercises three times the influence 

 in the country, and thrice the power with the government, sim 

 ply because the farmers have not learned how to work and pull 

 together; and, until recently, for a lack of knowledge of the 

 true principles of cooperation and organization. 



Now, we have in the Grange a safe, practical organization, 

 simple enough in form to unite the youngest and feeblest agri 

 cultural colony, and embracing a wide range of benefits not 

 confined to the agricultural class. 



Mechanics have suffered quite as much from middle-men as 

 the agriculturists, and for the same cause, viz., a defective edu 

 cation of both employer and employed. Between the master 

 or employer, who has no skill, and the workman, who has 

 skill without education, the middle-man, who has a little of 

 both, is a kind of necessity. Under the present system, Mr. 

 Scott Russell tells us, the employer of a thousand men may 

 pocket, in the shape of profits, one half of the whole earnings 

 of all ihe men, or a sum equal to the earnings of fifty or a hun 

 dred, as the case may be. But put a hundred men together 

 who have enjoyed equality of education, setting aside all ine 

 qualities of birth and fortune, and these proportions must 

 change. &quot;I believe,&quot; he adds, &quot;that the education of the fu- 



