ment, and to-day he may well be proud of the results of his
devotion.

The first grange was organized in St. Paul, Minnesota, and called the
"North Star Grange," and it is one of the most efficient subordinate
granges in the country to this day. Another was organized in
Washington, one in Fredonia, New York, one in Ohio, another in
Illinois, and a few others during the same year in different places.
This was very nearly six years ago. Since that time they have been
constantly increasing--at first slowly, then with a rapidity unheard
of in the history of secret or any other organizations in this country
or the world. We can hardly count three years since the order fairly
began to grow, and now the granges are numbered by the thousand. Ten
States on the twenty-fifth of June last had over a hundred granges,
and seven of these between two and five hundred. Iowa to-day has
seventeen hundred and ten, and others in process of organization.
Thirty-one of the States and Territories had subordinate or both
subordinate and State granges, according to the June returns. There
were eight at that date in Canada, twenty-three in Vermont, five in
New York State, three in New Jersey, two in Pennsylvania, and one in
Massachusetts. Up to this time there has been little effort made to
extend the organization into the Eastern and Middle States, but at
present deputies from the National Grange are being sent to these
"benighted regions," and the leaven is working finely. To show how
rapidly the order is extending it will be only necessary to add that
seven hundred and one charters for new granges were issued during the
single month of May.

The discussion of party politics is excluded from the order by common
consent, as well as by the terms of its constitution. How much this
one wise provision tends to preserve harmony among those of different
sects and political parties needs no comment. We know that on one
or both of these rocks most great popular organizations have been
wrecked. So far, the Patrons of Husbandry have worked together with
great harmony, and the slight discords have been nothing more than the
surface ripples on a great onward-setting current. Men and women
are received on terms of absolute equality throughout all the seven
degrees. Four are degrees conferred in subordinate granges, and the
higher in the State granges or in the National Grange--the seventh
in the latter only, constituting a national senate and court of
imp