460 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



spending only a few days, or at most weeks, in the 

 State to obtain. I am obliged to take the picture as it 

 is painted for me by those who have beem familiar 

 with it for years, and who have often sat at the farmer's 

 table and slept in his l spare room.' At the same time 

 no one can ride across this State without observing 

 even from the window of a railway car a painful con- 

 trast between the richness of the fields and the poverty 

 of many of the homes. I don't believe there is a better 

 farming country in the world than the Des Moines Val- 

 ley, with its beautiful rolling prairie lands, and it every 

 where shows evidence of good culture. And yet the 

 owners of those farms live too often in little cramped- 

 up houses, unattractive, in many cases uncomfortable. 

 If there are good houses, they are generally owned not 

 by the men who get their living from the farms, but by 

 the men who buy wheat and ship it, or who have 

 other means of support, and farm for pleasure, not for 

 profit. 



" Such a state of affairs as I have described cannot be 

 corrected in a month or a year, and yet, I am assured, 

 the influence of the Grange in elevating the farmers 

 socially is already very apparent. In the first place, it 

 brings together the farmers of a neighborhood, old and 

 young, men and women, and if it did nothing more it 

 would not have been established in vain ; for the peo- 

 ple of a town cannot spend an hour a week in informal 

 conversation, even, without gaining new ideas and 

 carrying away something to think about during the 

 days that follow. But the meetings of the Grange are 

 not entirely informal. A portion of the time is spent 

 in the discussion of topics that are of especial interest 

 to the farmers. The best crops for particular lands, 



