282 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



grew up the Grange, spreading over every State and 

 multiplying its groups of associates. Those who had 

 heretofore discussed cattle and soil and tools and 

 crops began to reach out after world problems. It 

 was a blind progress that was made, but the progress 

 was inevitable and sure. 



About 1890 the agricultural colleges had begun to 

 bring country work into alliance with science. All 

 the accumulating knowledge of the world was about 

 to be laid down at the door of the farmer. With 

 the experiment stations bulletins were issued freely 

 to be distributed, bringing to the front those 

 economic questions which can only be settled by 

 cooperation. New fruits and new flowers began to 

 enrich rural life, and men like Burbank stood in the 

 place of those heroes who had previously occupied 

 public attention. Farm produce not only reached 

 the seaboard cities, but began to get through the 

 tariff cordon and reach the markets of the world. 

 President McKinley invented the phrase " open 

 door," which meant free access for Kansas corn and 

 Minnesota wheat into the ports of Korea and South 

 Africa. District schools began to drop into town 

 schools and it was clear that we were in an off-clear- 

 ing that looked to still more revolutionary changes. 



When President Butterfield of the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural College held a conference on rural af- 

 fairs in 1908, he invited not only neighboring col- 

 leges but church associations, art associations, and 

 all sorts of labor leagues. He argued that the time 



