Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1877-04-12
PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY.
WHAT MAKES A PROSPEROUS GRANGE.

wears the order grew but slowly, was little
KNOWN and met with the opposition with
which all reforms, all new Improvements or
inventions always have been received. Still
it survived its days of trial, and within the
past five years it has become an acknoWl-
edge fact, one of the institutions OF our
country, and has far outstripped the bright
est hopes and dreams of those who founded
it, until to-day, in nearly twenty-five thou
sand neighborhoods, have the farmers come
out from their isolation, and under the fra
ternal ties of the mystic grange or bonded
together in our order, existing and working
harmonious and alike, whether among the
hills and valleys of the Eastern and Middle
States, the pines and orange groves OF the
South, in the prairies Of the West, or the
Pacific slope of our great continent, all in
one mighty brotherhood.
We were told that farmers never could be
organized, never could be brought together
to work for their own interests. That the
order would not last three months, and per-
haps a year at furthest. But we have prov
ell to the contrary, as all these thousands of
oranges testify, and the great benefits. Yes,
really the u%ncounted advantage and value it
has been to farmers everywhere-foE many
do not yet fully realize all it has done and is
doing to upbuild and elevate our alling-
proves what it is doing for us to-day.
But all these thousands of oranges are
not prospecting alike. Some have succeeded
fur better than others, some have obtained
from the order all and even more than they
expected ftom it; some have not done so
we'll, some even langnished, grow weary
and fell by the wayside. And while all
started about alike. with the same prospects,
the same possibilities and chances before
them, some exceed others in their prosper
ity, even as in the race Of life some surpass
others, or as in the race of life some farm
ers and their farms succeeded better than
others.
The grange has now been practically
working long enough for us to judge, not
from theory, but from actual facts, as to the
causes that bring about the greater or less
prosperity of the grange. Yhe principls Of
good grange work, like the principles of
farming, apply in all neighborhoods and in
all sections.
From long associations with members of
our order and visiting their oranges in sew
eral States, we have noted the difference be-
tween one grange and another, between the
Patrons Of one neighborhood and another,
and then we have en%deayored to discover
the reasons tor these differences; why the
grange was an acknowledged success in one
place, its members earnest and enthusiastic,
prosperous and full of bright hopes for the
future, while in another there was no en-
;husiasm, little life, less of interest and ap-
parently but little hope. We have found
that the same causes produce the same
effects, 1t matters not how widely
separated the locality, and that when
the remedy was found, the mistake discov-
cred, that the cure was rapid and success
followed.
It is probable that in all the thousands Of
oranges that have been organized, the great
majority of the members joined from pure
and honest motives, because they believed
that farmers needed the organization, and
that without it they could hardly long COM
pete with all other fully organized interests;
and if all have no succeeded alike, it has
often been from not having enough land
marks to so by. Some Of the causes, errors
and mistakes that have come to our notice
as making or hindering the prosperity of a
grange, we propose to give to the readers
of the Bulvta., with the hope that good may
come of it.
MEETINGS.