BUSINESS COOPERATION 249 



to general supervision of the business features of the order, until 

 1876, when a regular business agency for filling orders and 

 receiving consignments of produce was established in Milwaukee. 

 This agency did a considerable business for a few years and 

 persisted during the decade of the eighties. In 1886, however, 

 the agent reported that the business was not confined to members 

 of the order and that the service of the agency was most con- 

 siderable as a bureau of information as to prices and a regulator 

 of local trade. 1 The operations of the Grange agencies in Kansas, 2 

 Nebraska, 3 and Missouri 4 were similar to those in Iowa though 

 on a smaller scale, and were all brought to a close by the collapse 

 of the order in these states in the later seventies. In Missouri 

 the Patrons had at one time besides the ordinary purchasing 

 agent, a commission agent and a live stock agent in St. Louis. 



The business operations of the order in California were exten- 

 sive and different in many ways from those attempted in other 

 parts of the country, and consequently it will be worth while 

 to sketch them in some detail. 5 The primary purpose of the 

 California farmers in organizing the State Farmers' Union, 

 out of which grew the state grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, 

 was to bring about cooperation in the marketing of products, 

 especially grain, and in the purchase of grain sacks and other 

 supplies. Various plans were laid by the Farmers' Union during 

 1872 and 1873 for different forms of cooperation, but the actual 



1 On Grange cooperation in Wisconsin, see Wisconsin State Grange, Proceed- 

 ings, ii-viii (1874-80); Prairie Farmer, xliv. 211, 369, xlv. 139, xlvi. 283 (1873- 

 75); Maynard, Patrons of Husbandry in Wisconsin (Ms.), 16-29, 5 2 > 66; Lea, 

 Grange Movement in Wisconsin (Ms.), 14; Wisconsin Bureau of Labor and In- 

 dustrial Statistics, Reports, ii. 208-211 (1885-86); Albert Shaw, " Cooperation in 

 the Northwest," in Johns Hopkins University, Studies, vi. 316-318. 



2 See Kansas State Grange, Proceedings, iii. 3, 4, 7-11, 32, 34-37 (1875) and 

 J. K. Hudson, Patrons' Handbook, 26. 



3 Nebraska State Grange, Proceedings, iv. 7-12, 22-25, 31-36 (1874); Prairie 

 Farmer, xlv. 235 (July 25, 1874). 



4 Missouri State Grange, Proceedings, iii. 16, 34-43, iv. n, 21-23, 78-80, 103, 

 108-113, 119-131 (1874, 1875). 



6 Most of the documents and other material upon which the following account 

 of business operations in California is based, can be found in Carr, Patrons of 

 Husbandry, chs. ix, xii, xiv-xvi. See also Prairie Farmer, xlv. 291, 331, 347, 355, 

 361, 387, xlvi. 21, 75 (1874-75). 



