Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 497 
skill than the Grange. The enemy knoAvs what blows the Club will 
give, and studies his wards and parrys; but the Grange is a left¬ 
hander and strikes where he wots not of. The Clubs, as a general 
rule, have been failures, and Avhy? 
1st. The enemy was there and soAA^ed tares with the good seed. 
2d. The wife, the mother, the sister, were not there; too often 
the Club has been a place where the boys learned to chew tobacco, 
and little else; but in the Grange, woman shines as she does in her 
own home. The society of the Grange, the bringing together the 
families of different farmers and placing them upon a common 
platform, strengthens the strong and elevates the Aveak—each and 
all are put upon their best behavior, and Avhere the incentive be for 
all to do their best, all will improve and each learn of the other. 
The only objection I have ever heard to the Grange is, that it is a 
secret society. This objection is urged very hard by store-keepers of 
all kinds, by railroads and other great monopolists. Some neAvspa- 
pers, paid by the vultures that feed on the farmers 1 hard-earned 
fruits, howl magnificently, u hay-seed! 11 “ hay-seed! 11 We grangers 
say let the wolf howl; our gate hath its keeper. Some good farmers, 
through a mistaken notion, saj r we would join the Grange if it was 
not secret; they believe in open-hand daylight. To all such persons 
I will say, there is not a bushel-basket full of secrets in the four de¬ 
grees of a subordinate Grange. In fact, I believe that eA ery farm¬ 
er and his wife have more secrets between themselves than there is in 
the Grange, and I fear some of them have secrets quite as weighty, 
that they don’t tell each other. I lived over forty years without 
belonging to any society or order. I joined a Grange because I be¬ 
lieved it would add to the pleasure and happiness of not only my¬ 
self, but my wife and children. Farmers 1 wives are d barred from 
many of the pleasures of refined society; her visits to the lecture, 
the theater, and concert, grow rarer as the years roll by; men are 
too apt to forget that women are more sociable by nature than men; 
that they crave society. That taste and a desire to be pleasing and 
admired is as much their nature as is man’s to be a leader, or to use 
a vulgar phrase, a boss. Women love to Avear their best dresses as 
well as a man loves ten per cent. This is right. One checks the 
other, and sociality makes better companions. In the Grange, 
many of these social wants are supplied. The few simple forms 
and ceremonies of purity make the } r oung heart lighter and the 
32 a 
