EXAMPLES FROM OTHER LANDS 43 



agricultural production, combination for sale, tariff, sanita- 

 tion and other legislative questions, and problems of national 

 life in general. The basis of the organisation is formed by 

 local Granges. These " secret societies " (for such they are 

 in effect, being somewhat akin in their working to the 

 Freemasons' societies) elect representatives to County 

 Granges which, in turn, send delegates to State Granges, 

 and these, again, choose the members of a National Grange, 

 whose annual congress is the equivalent of a Farmers' 

 Parliament for the United States, and is the most influential 

 body of agriculturists in that country. 



In regard to the various phases of agricultural co-operation 

 in the United States, it is a noteworthy fact that while there 

 has hitherto been comparatively little development of the 

 principles either of agricultural credit or of collective pur- 

 chase, which have been primary causes for the spread of 

 agricultural co-operation in many other countries, there has 

 been a remarkable expansion of that principle of combina- 

 tion for sale which elsewhere has been regarded as the 

 particular form of the general movement that presents 

 greater difficulty than any other. 



It is in the western States, in connection with the fruit 

 industry, that co-operation for marketing has undergone the 

 greatest degree of expansion. A variety of causes have 

 contributed to this result, among them being (1) the fact 

 that the great production of fruit — more especially in 

 California — made it necessary that markets should be sought, 

 not alone in other States, but in other countries ; (2) the 

 need for having as full and complete a knowledge of these 

 markets as possible ; (3) the necessity for consigning to 

 them under such conditions as not only to secure the best 

 terms for transport, but also to guarantee the sending of 

 produce in large quantities of uniform qualities, and likely, 

 therefore, to secure uniform prices ; and (4) the obvious 

 advantage in having all these things done through powerful 

 co-operative societies, each acting for a large group of 

 growers, instead of leaving every individual among them to 

 make the best terms he could with the middlemen who had 



