The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
989 
Farm Co-operation 
The Business of a Grange Exchange 
The day I stumbled on the State Grange 
Exchange in Syracuse, X. IT., they had 
just finished disposing of that carload of 
Grimm Alfalfa seed from the Northwest, 
and the folks in the store were jubilant 
over the result. You see. the seedsmen in 
Syracuse, hearing the Grange Exchange 
had ordered a whole carload at one ship¬ 
ment. had been tolling farmers that the 
Grange wouldn’t sell all that Alfalfa seed 
in five years. It teas considerable of an 
undertaking, since it cost around 46 cents 
a pound, and a carload contains a great 
many thousand pounds. In fact. I was 
told that carload of seed cost in the 
neighborhood of $18,000, and that the 
draft had to go with the order. 
Yes, it was a big undertaking: but 
when you've got 120.000 of New York's 
State’s most progressive, prosperous and 
pushing farmers behind you, what’s 
$18,000 for Alfalfa seed? 
This store has been running since about 
October, 191S. S. .T. Lowell. Master of 
the State Grange, told mt> in March what 
the aggregate business up to that date 
had been. The figures are misplaced, and 
it is never safe to quote figures from 
memory, but it is my impression that'he 
said in about five months the business 
handled there was around $80,000. 
However that may be. it does not take 
you long in the Grange Exchange to sense 
“big business.” I saw the early morning 
mail opened the day I was there, and 
most of the letters contained orders for 
something, and practically every order 
had a check pinned to it. 
The business was growing when I was 
there faster than it could be organized. 
Manager Hall had a force of about eight, 
four men and four women, working in the 
place. One man tends the store. The 
rest are in the office handling the enor¬ 
mous correspondence and banking busi¬ 
ness. 
The store resembles a little the old 
“general store” at the corners, that has 
Office Force of State Grange Exchange; Manager Richard Hail at the Left 
Tt is not much of a store to look at. 
this Grange Exchange, not as stores go. 
There is no imposing front, no great 
window trim, no effort at decoration and 
embellishment, as great department stores 
are accustomed to have. But in the two 
floors of that store they were doing a 
business that any house in Syracuse might 
envy. Retailing is a little out of their 
regular line, although they can accomo¬ 
date you with garden seeds, or a sprink¬ 
ling pot, or almost anything you need in 
small quantities. Their great hold is be¬ 
ing a clearing-house for all the buying 
agents of all the local Granges through 
the State. 
Take this matter of Luce’s Favorite 
seed corn, for example; pretty much all 
the output of the Suffolk County Co-op¬ 
erative Association has been handled 
through this one insignificant-looking 
store in Syracuse. Practically all that 
variety of seed sold in New York State 
was marketed through this store, a mat¬ 
ter of 24.000 bushels this Spring. As a 
matter of fact, only a small portion of the 
equipment aud supplies the Grange Ex- 
been driven out of business so commonly 
by the mail order houses and by the prox¬ 
imity to which the cities have been 
brought by good roads, trolleys, mail de¬ 
livery and automobiles. But if scores of 
general stores have been wiped out. here is 
one that has sprouted from the roots, 
bigger than all the rest put together. 
This is the New York State farmer's 
own mail order house. lie supports it: 
he gets the profits ; In* runs the business. 
These men counting the checks are his 
hired men. 
The Grange Exchange was authorized 
in 1918 by the voting delegates of the 
120.(MX) Grangers in the State. There 
must have been economic necessity for it. 
or it would not have been brought into 
existence. Profiteering on farmers who 
buy individually and in small lots is 
pretty well overcome when 120.000 pool 
their orders, buy skilfully in the lowest 
market and can demand guaranteed goods. 
The 120.000 mem here in the Grange in 
New York are scattered through 900 
Subordinate Granges in 51 counties of 
the State. Many of the local Granges 
Interior of Grange Store. Syracuse. X. V: 
change has been distributing through the 
State was actually handled in this store. 
The whole stock on hand that I saw on 
the two floors would not. I should judge, 
equal two carloads. That’s just it; Rich¬ 
ard Hall, the energetic manager of the 
store, does not keep stuff'; he sells it. 
Distribution of cariots often takes place 
at the freight house. That car of Grimm 
Alfalfa that caused the Syracuse seeds¬ 
men so much anxiety was. I am informed, 
sold before it was ordered. All the Grange 
folks did was to go to the freight house 
where the car was being unloaded, retag 
the bags to their respective destinations, 
and the freight hands did the rest. 
Now this is good business. It is one 
of the best propositions the farmers of 
New York State ever got behind. Not 
only i- it advantageous to buy collectively, 
but buying through a central agency it 
can be demanded that goods measure up 
to a standard. Dairy feeds can be tested 
for you by the State, and the dealer who 
tries to put across a dairy ration com¬ 
posed largely of oat hulls or sawdust, 
runs against a snag when the whole 
Grange membership of New York State 
says “Nothing doing.” 
have buying agencies of their own. (bit 
of these local buying agencies ('prang the 
necessity for this central purchasing 
agency. It is big business ge.ting right 
out to the farm. The officers of the Ex¬ 
change are: President, Prof. II. II. Wing. 
Cornell T’niversity. Ithaca; advisory 
board. 8. .T. Lowell. Fredonia. Master of 
the New York State Grange; W. N. Giles. 
Skaneateles. secretary of the State 
Grange; \Y. T„ Bean, treasurer of State 
Grange; Ira Sharp, chairman of the State 
Grange executive committee, and S. L. 
Strivings, president of the Federation of 
Farm Bureaus of the State. 
While I was in the office I could hear 
them calling off orders for lime. Soy beans. 
Luce's corn, onion seed, apple spray, 
prices on silos, automobile tires, mowing 
machines, cultivators, sewing machines, 
and about everything else you can think 
of except live stock. It is a live, going 
concern. While Manager Hall gives no 
figures, from what I could learn in Syra¬ 
cuse from other sources, it appears as if 
at the present rate this concern, which the 
farmers own. will attain a business in its 
first year of half a million dollars. 
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