i2 4 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



but the plan never worked well. Moreover, none of 

 these societies actually embraced all the farmers of the 

 community or even the majority of them in most cases. 

 Many Grange members are not producers. Identity 

 of interests is the very foundation of collective bargain- 

 ing; diversity of interests is fatal to its success. So it 

 has remained for specialized cooperative enterprises 

 such as the California Fruit Growers' Exchange, and 

 more recently a large number of similar efforts, really 

 to set in motion the beginning of a system of coopera- 

 tive buying and selling among farmers. 



A NEW MEANING TO ORGANIZATION 



We are beginning to use the word u organization " 

 in a new sense, and this change of definition is exceed- 

 ingly important. The idea may perhaps be expressed, 

 first, by saying that " organization " is much broader 

 than an organization. Just as we think of education as 

 far more than school and college, so organization is far 

 more than the cooperation of one thousand people or 

 even a million people for some one end. In this book 

 the word " association " is used to describe the various 

 cooperating groups of farmers, and the word " organ- 

 ization " for a different, and we think a larger, idea. 

 But what is this larger idea? We may say that rural 

 organization is the cooperation of all available agencies 

 on behalf of a definite program to improve agriculture 

 and country life and to adjust the interests of farmers 

 to the common good of the nation and of the world. 

 Organization brings to bear upon any problem all the 

 forces that can help solve the problem. Organization 

 is of universal application. An individual can organize 

 his life; so can a nation; indeed the war has brought us 

 face to face with the problem of world organization. 



