Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-12-25

middlemen were the best patrons of
their advertising columns, and that
they were not disposed to take up an
enterprise that would initiate against
themselves.
Eleven months ago there were but
leo oranges in the whole country. 1t
was then that the movement took sud-
den forward start, and it has since
grown with a rapidity astounding to
Mr.. Saunders and to everybody else.
There are now over $500 oranges in all
the States, and they are increasing by
the hundreds weekly. There are over
1900 in Iowa alone. In Pennsylvania,
twenty-eight oranges were formed not
long ago, the result of an agents labors
there for few weeks. Speaking of this
rapid growth, Mr.. Saunders remarked
to me that the thing was now beyond
his control, and that he could do little
else than sit still and observe its course.
Still he receives large mail daily from
all parts of the country, and he has
numerous calls from people interested
in the movement. The reported mem
bership is nearly $4,000
Mr.. Saunders declares that he has no
fight to make with the railroads nor with
middlemen. His whole affair is with
the farmers. The moment they begin
to act together the railroads will be-
come their tractable servants, and the
agents who have hitherto taken the
lions share of the profits will disappear.
for there will be nothing for them to do.
| referred to the element of secrecy in
corporated in the organization. Mr..
Saunders replied that the secrecy did
not amount to much; that there were
really no more secrets among the Pat
rons of Husbandry than there were in
families or in firms of merchants or
manufacturers. Undertaking to man.
age their affairs through their own
agents, it was only proper that
they should exercise a due discre-
ton and keep their matters to them
selves. Some of the transactions of
the order are very remarkable, and
show what immense advantages the
farmers may reap from cooperation in
Mr.. Saunders stated that
in Illinois the State Agent of the
Changers ascertained that a favorite
reaper, which the farmers had been
paying $50 for to agents of the manu-
facturers, was sold to the agents of
the manufacturer for 800 each. The
State Agent asked the manufacturer
how many reapers he could make in a
year, and, learning what the number
was, he told him he would take all he
could make in a year at $50 each.
Thus the farmers saved $50 en- every
80
the order recently bought /, 800 sewing
outright of the maker for
S35 each, saving S25 on each. In less
than month 900 of the machines were
taken off his hands by members of the
various oranges. Last spring the mem
bers of a grange in Vermont wished to
buy some corn. Their Secretary so in
formed the Secretary of the National
Grange in this city, who directed ali
agent in Iowa to buy some corn, hire
cars, load them, and ship the corn
through to Vermont. The Vermont
ers, upon receiving the grain, found
that they had saved 49, cents bushel,
its cost with the price
charged by their regular dealers. A
few transactions of this kind getting
noised among the farmers last spring
gave the movement its surprising i'm
petus.
Lately the National Grange has inter
ested itself in assisting cotton growers
in the South by negotiating for large
quantity of cloth for cotton bales. Four
million bales are used in the South each
season, and have hitherto cost the rails
ers S1.25 each. Two or three old firms
in the East have the whole trade. An
agent of the National Grange went to
them and proposed to take alarge guam
tity of the material used at reduced
price. At first dealers were shy
and Indifferent, but they soon discov-
cred that the agent was prepared to
give bonds for the fulfllment of his en-
gagement, and to pay cash on delivery,
and they reduced their price several
cents yard.
Again, the National Grange proposes
to use portion of its funds in encour-
aging the invention of agricultural i'm
plements. Take, for instance, cotton
ties. The only good tie for cotton bales
now in use is manufactured by an En-
glish firm, which holds a patent on it,
anu CudIRcS jill cAOIDlbdub Lie
Grange intends to encourage American
inventors to contrive a substitute for
this tie
Just now Mr.. Saunders is seeking to
devise an improved method of insur-
ance for farmers. Another of his plans
is to have portion of the funds of the
National Grange which now amount to
some S35, OOO-expended for libraries
for subordinate oranges. Already the
educational interests of the order are in
a measure provided for, inasmuch as
each society has regular officer, called
the lecturer, whose duty it is to give
special attention to the science of agri-
culture and to the improvements that
are made from time to time in the de-
partments in which husbandmen are in
terested.
Although so much has been accom-
plished by the order during the past
ten months, both directly and indirect
ly, yet Mr.. Saunders is confident that a
comparatively small beginning only has
been made, and that, with hundreds of
men on the alert to devise and hunt up
things for the good of the order, there