ADVANTAGE OF MUTUAL ASSISTANCE.

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Neighborly Help.

looked forward to by country-bred youth. These, and many other neighborly acts, have been common in every community of farmers from time immemorial. Through a close social organization among them, the principle may be applied in a variety of ways, keeping alive a kindly and generous feeling, one toward another, and proving of great material benefit, also, through co-operative assistance in carrying out the labors of the farm. The soil of one farm may become ready to plow, or sow, or harvest, days before another. In the Society, this might be arranged, and the labor mapped out in succession, so that much valuable time now lost might be saved. A.'s field may be plowed and seeded to-day, B.'s field to-morrow, and so on. If B. has double the land of A., he has, or should have, double the team. If he do one day's work for A. with two teams, he should receive in return two day's work with one team. The rich neighbor may, perhaps, have the better teams, and, therefore, the poor neighbor may receive more than he gave; but, again, the gain in having the work of both accomplished just when it should be, would more than balance this.

Plans may also be laid in the Council or Club, that will enable the farmer to successfully compete with his city neighbor, who is acutely educated to trade. The farmer owning a thousand acres or more is able to economize labor in a variety of small things, and thus saves, where the

workers of small farms must lose. Mutual assistance and co-operation will obviate this in a great degree.

A single instance will suffice to illustrate the point here presented. I once had occasion to purchase nineteen corn cultivators in one season, having increased the area of corn to require this additional number. Two of my neighbors wanted three each, making twenty-five in all. I wrote letters to several manufacturers, asking the lowest cash price for the quantity. The dealers at the nearest railroad town soon found out what I had done, and waited on me, offering to sell at prices lower than the factory price and freight would cost me, being content with the relative difference between the freight on my twenty-five, and the freight on car lots. They did not relish this interference with their prerogatives, but, of course, they could not help themselves. This was before the manufacturers combined to sell only through their agents. They are beginning to find that the project of forcing farmers to buy of whom they please, and as they please, is like having too many cooks in making broth-the dish is sure to be spoiled.

CHAPTER X.

THE ORDER OF PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY.

WHAT IS A GRANGE?

Webster says that the French word grange signifies a farm; grangier, a farmer; the Spanish word grangear, is to cultivate, and grangero a farmer. In Scotland, the buildings belonging to a grain-farm are called a grange; since, originally, the place where the rents and tithes due to the priesthood, and payable in grain, were deposited, was the grange, from the Latin word granum, grain. Shakespeare and Milton both use the word grange as meaning a farmhouse, with the buildings and stables attached.

In England, "grange" is generally used to signify an old farm or manor house, surrounded by ancient trees, and sometimes by a moat or ditch. During the civil wars which devastated England up to two centuries ago, these manor houses and farm strongholds were made the scenes of bitter strife between the contending factions, and were often stubbornly defended. Hence, the term may be liberally construed as "stronghold"-happily expressive of the sense in which the Patrons of Husbandry use it.

The wealth of the farmer consists in his lands, buildings, stock, implements, and grain. Upon his cattle and grain are dependent, not only himself and his family, but also the entire community. In time of civil war, or other great na

tional danger, the care of that which will support life is of vital importance. In time of strife, under the old baronial rule, neither party was especially careful to pay for what they wanted. If they found it, they took it, and the poor husbandman was left with nothing to maintain his family; hence, when able to do so, he made his house his stronghold. The Patrons of Husbandry could scarcely have found a more appropriate designation for their places of meeting than the word Grange. It is, literally, their stronghold. The means of access may be aptly symbolized by the actual approaches of the Grange, as they existed in England during times of trouble, to-wit, a drawbridge and a ladder. Here the defenders meet-the Laborer and the Maid, the Cultivator and the Shepherdess, the Harvester and the Gleaner, the Husbandman and the Matron.

DEGREES OF THE ORDER SYMBOLIZED.

The above are the names of the degrees of the subordinate or local Granges, in which communities of farmers, their wives, and those of their children who are approaching maturity, meet to labor for the general good; to devise plans for social improvement; to discuss means for the mutual welfare of the fraternity; and to assist each other in the every day business of life. When the younger ones shall have arrived at the full age and stature of Husbandman and Matron, they will have climbed the first four steps of the ladder. To gain thus much, the candidate must have broken up the stubborn glebe of ignorance, and cultured it with the harrow and roller of good intent, that it may receive the seeds of education, which, in due time, shall return the husbandman an hundred-fold of knowledge. The succession of these four stages may be represented by the rise

DEGREES OF THE ORDER SYMBOLIZED.

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of man from the state of a savage. First, having neither flocks nor herds, primeval man gains a precarious subsistence by the chase and slaughter of such wild beasts as hę may be able to overcome. While living this hand-to-mouth existence-to-day overburdened with meat and having no incentive to exertion, anon, driven by extreme want to resume his toil-but slight mental improvement is possible. Rising slowly in intelligence, he gathers flocks and herds, and emerges from his primeval barbarism, and the light of civilization begins to dawn upon him. Still his condition is that of a nomad, and improvable only to a limited extent; the pastoral life necessitates frequent changes of location as his flocks and herds exhaust the pasture.

In the course of time he seeks a more settled mode of life. He learns to till the soil in a rude way, and provide stores for the winter; gathers his fellows together into communities, makes laws for the general welfare, and becomes qualified to subdue and replenish the earth. The progress of struggling humanity, however, is still very slow. The discoveries and inventions of one generation are handed down to the next orally, and, necessarily, imperfectly; the craftsman hands down by word of mouth to his son the secrets of his trade. Thus, for ages, the improvement goes on, certain but slow, till the invention of the art of writing gives a vast impulse to the rate of progress. Thenceforward the advance is at an accelerating rate, and the achievements of man, once on record, relapse into oblivion no more. The higher, Godlike nature becomes expanded, and man goes on, step by step, forming empires, surmounting difficulties apparently unconquerable but only met to be overcome; the rate of progress quickening, till, at length, he no longer advances step by step, but by leaps and bounds toward that perfection which he was created to attain.