302 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



you can see what I have made of it. But I never 

 could have paid for it in the sixteen years I have been 

 here from the profits of farming. I was successful in a 

 little speculation, and made enough to buy the land.' 



" l The railroad men say that you farmers are extrava- 

 gant in your living j that during your years of prosperity 

 the silk dress got into the family, and that you have 



never been able to 

 get it out in short, 

 that you are indulg- 

 ing in a style of liv- 

 ing wholly unknown 

 among you a few 



years ago. 



<It is 



so, 



not 



was the reply. i If 

 you will notice the 

 little boxes of houses 

 in which the most 

 of our farmers live, 

 with almost nothing 

 about them to make 

 them attractive, and 

 then if you could go 

 into them and see 

 how meanly they are 

 furnished, and how the inmates have to economize and 

 count every cent they expend, you would see that the 

 assertion is not true. Take the farmers who live within 

 ten miles west of me, and I don't believe the whole of them 

 spend $15 a year in reading matter ; and as for dress, 

 your mechanics, who work by the day, and their families, 

 are much better clad. All over these prairies you see 



W. C. FLAGG, PRESIDENT OF THE ILLI- 

 NOIS STATE FARMERS' ASSOCIATION. 



