SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL FEATURES 287 



and thus many farmers were enabled to take trips which would 

 have been impossible for them otherwise. On these occasions, 

 they not only saw something of the world but experienced the 

 liberalizing influence of rubbing shoulders with men from differ- 

 ent parts of the state or country. And when they returned 

 they were expected to give an account of their experiences 

 to the home grange, thus passing the influence along to every 

 Patron. 



All the leaders of the order from the National Grange down 

 were insistent that members should be encouraged to read. 

 Large numbers of tracts, folders, and leaflets of a more or less 

 educational character were distributed by the National Grange, 

 as well as handbooks, guides, and manuals of parliamentary 

 practice. 1 A considerable number of the more flourishing 

 granges established libraries of their own 2 and it was quite 

 common for a grange to subscribe for four or five leading agri- 

 cultural papers, which would be passed around among the 

 members. 3 The habit of reading was stimulated in another 

 way^ the discussions in the grange aroused the interest of 

 the farmer in all sorts of topics, agricultural, economic, and even 

 political, and he soon discovered that if he were going to take 

 part in or profit by these discussions he must cultivate the 

 acquaintance of books and papers. As a result the sale of books 

 and more especially the circulation of papers is said to have 

 increased very considerably in some neighborhoods. 4 One 



1 Ibid. viii. 33, x. 20 (February, 1875, 1876); Martin, Grange Movement, 462; 

 Aiken, The Grange, 10. 



2 Kelley, Patrons of Husbandry, 249; National Grange, Proceedings, x. 20, 36, 

 xvi. 46 (1876, 1882); Ohio State Grange, Proceedings, i, iii (1874, 1876); Aiken, 

 The Grange, 10. 



3 Rural Carolinian, iv. 493 (June, 1873); Martin, Grange Movement, 468. 



4 National Grange, Proceedings, vii. 7, xii. 100 (1873, 1878); Alabama State 

 Grange, Proceedings, iii. 14 (1875); Ohio State Grange, Proceedings, iii. 66-69 

 (1876); Martin, Grange Movement, 470; Whitehead, in New Jersey Bureau of 

 Statistics, Reports, ix. 348 (1886). The number of agricultural journals increased 

 in the United States during the decade 1870-80 from 93 with an aggregate circula- 

 tion of 770, 752 copies to 173 with an aggregate of 1,022,771 copies. S. N. D. North, 

 " The Newspaper and Periodical Press," in United States Census, 1880, viii. 121. 

 Farmers and members of their families were also stimulated to write for the 

 papers. For example, the Prairie Farmer offered prizes for essays on such subjects 



