6 PREFACE. 



Patrons of Husbandry are to-day a power which no political 

 party can afford to ignore, and which will soon, perhaps in the 

 next year, be able to decide the majority of the popular elections 

 throughout the Union. 



It is but natural, then, that the people of the United States 

 should be very desirous of knowing more about this power- 

 ful Order. The whole land is full of rumors regarding it, 

 the majority of which are utterly without foundation. The 

 present volume is offered to the public as a means of satisfying 

 their legitimate curiosity upon this subject. It presents a care- 

 ful, and, it is believed, impartial account of the wrongs from 

 which the agricultural classes have been suffering ; the causes 

 which led to the organization of the Order of Patrons of Hus- 

 bandry ; together with an account of the establishment of the 

 Order, its history, its present condition, its objects, and its plans 

 and prospects for the future. 



It has long been evident to earnest thinkers that the farmers 

 of the United States are the most cruelly oppressed class of our 

 community. In these pages the writer has sought to set forth 

 these wrongs, and to plead the cause of the farmer, in the hope 

 of awakening the general public to a realization of the case. 

 We cannot afford to allow the farmer to suffer at the hands of 

 his enemies. Upon his weal or woe depends the prosperity of 

 the entire nation. The farmers' cause is that of the people, and 

 it is the aim of this work to show that in battling for the 

 farmers' rights, the Grange is fighting the cause of the whole 

 people. 



For several years past the country has been suffering from 

 evils of which all have been conscious, but which none had the 

 courage to remedy, until the Grange took up the cause of the 

 oppressed. Prominent among these are the burdens that have 

 been fastened upon the people by the reckless and unscrupulous 



