et in
villages or in the open country and the effect which this has upon the
relation of the Grange to the community, but it may be safely asserted
that, as is the case with the church and the school, the Grange tends to
meet in village centers as a matter of convenience to the largest number
of its members, and that, as indicated by Mr. Lowell, it is coming to
recognize its responsibility for the general improvement of the
community as a whole.

_Other Farmers' Organizations._--Throughout the South and in Kansas and
Nebraska the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union is the leading
farmers' organization, but it is chiefly devoted to cooperative business
enterprises and does but little for the education or social life of its
members, who are usually all men. The same may be said of the Society of
Equity, which is strongest in Wisconsin, Kentucky, and South Dakota. In
Michigan, although the Grange is strong, the Gleaners have a
considerable membership.

In many states, particularly where the grange is not well established,
farmers' clubs have been organized. In some cases local conditions make
clubs feasible where it would be difficult to enlist a large enough part
of the community to make a grange equally successful. In some cases such
clubs are open to farmers only; in others they include the whole family;
while in recent years many farm women's clubs have been organized.
Whether such clubs should be for the whole family, or for men or women
only, is largely a local question depending upon the social usages and
homogeneity of the population. In Wisconsin and Minnesota family clubs
have been most successful. It is doubtful whether this would be equally
true in the South. In the South such local clubs have been the local
units of the extension work in agriculture and home economics. Where for
any reason it is not possible to include the whole community in a club,
several clubs may be organized, each including a congenial membership,
as is now the case with women's clubs in cities, and these may then be
federated for community purposes.

_Lodges._--In most rural villages will be found one or more lodges of
fraternal orders, such as the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias,
Maccabees, etc., with the corresponding orders of women's auxiliaries.
The place and influence of lodges in the life of the rural community
have been strangely neglected by students of country life, and we have
no means of evaluating their pla