270 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



The main object of all these manufacturing schemes was to 

 provide members of the order with the products of the factories 

 at a low price; but there was another sort of Grange factories, 

 the object of which was to provide a market for the raw materials 

 produced by the farmers. Grist-mills, cheese and butter fac- 

 tories, linseed oil factories, starch factories, pork-packing estab- 

 lishments, and even hemp factories and cotton mills in the South, 

 were projected under the auspices of the order in great profusion, 

 and many were established. Most of these enterprises were 

 local in character, the capital being furnished by the organiza- 

 tion of a stock company among the Patrons of a neighborhood, 

 and as a general rule they seem to have been more successful 

 than the more ambitious agricultural implement factories. 

 Farmers' cooperative creameries and cheese factories had made 

 their appearance in some parts of the West even before the rise 

 of the Grange, but their number was greatly increased by the 

 order and they undoubtedly helped to bring prosperity to many 

 a neighborhood. 1 



BANKING AND INSURANCE 



Another business in which the Grangers proposed to invest 

 their surplus capital was that of banking. Projects for Grange 

 banks were discussed in several of the southern and western 

 states, 2 and a New York speculator proposed the establishment 

 of a " Grangers' Mortgage Bank " in that city, 3 but the only state 



Prairie Farmer, xlv. 139, 355 (1874); Western Rural, xiii. 380 (November 27, 1875); 

 Woodman, in American Grange Bulletin, xxx. nos. 38, 41, 43, 48 (1901); Maynard, 

 Patrons of Husbandry in Wisconsin (Ms.), 66; State grange proceedings: Iowa, 

 iv-vi (1873-75); Nebraska, iv (1874); Texas, i. 25 (1874). 



Some of the state granges refused to be drawn into these manufacturing schemes. 

 See Michigan State Grange, Proceedings, ii (1875); Missouri State Grange, Pro- 

 ceedings, iii, iv (1874, 1875); Prairie Farmer, xlv. 243, 371 (1874). 



1 National Grange, Proceedings, viii. 39 (1875); North Carolina State Grange, 

 Proceedings, ii-iv (1875-77); Prairie Farmer, xliv. 57, 377, xlv. 139, 186, xlvi. 

 355 (1873-75); Wisconsin Statesman, July 31, 1875, P- 3; Maynard, Patrons of 

 Husbandry in Wisconsin (Ms.), 66; Shaw, in Johns Hopkins University, Studies, 

 vi. 340; Warner, in ibid. 378-382. 



2 Virginia State Grange, Proceedings, i (1874); North Carolina State Grange, 

 Proceedings, ii, iv (1874, 1877). 



3 E. J. Nieuwland, High Interest Monopoly and its Remedies (leaflet, 1874). 



