find some one who would supply the Grange with implements
at less than the retail price. In Iowa, where the state Grange early
established an agency for cooperative buying, the agent managed to
persuade a manufacturer of plows to give a discount to Grangers. As a
result, this manufacturer's plows are reported to have left the factory
with the paint scarcely dry, while his competitors, who had refused to
make special terms, had difficulty in disposing of their stock. But the
manufacturers of harvesters persistently refused to sell at wholesale
rates. The Iowa Grange thereupon determined to do its own manufacturing
and succeeded in buying a patent for a harvester which it could make
and sell for about half what other harvesters cost. In 1874 some 250 of
these machines were manufactured, and the prospects looked bright.

Deceived by the apparent success of grange manufacturing in Iowa,
officers of the order at once planned to embark in manufacturing on a
large scale. The National Grange was rich in funds at this time; it
had within a year received well over $250,000 in dispensation fees
from seventeen thousand new Granges. Angered at what was felt to be the
tyranny of monopoly, the officers of the National Grange decided to use
this capital in manufacturing agricultural implements which were to be
sold to Patrons at very low prices. They went about the country buying
patents for all sorts of farm implements, but not always making sure of
the worth of the machinery or the validity of the patents. In Kansas,
Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, they
planned factories to make harvesters, plows, wagons, sewing-machines,
threshing-machines, and all sorts of farm implements. Then came the
crash. The Iowa harvester factory failed in 1875 and bankrupted the
state Grange. Other failures followed; suits for patent infringements
were brought against some of the factories; local Granges disbanded for
fear they might be held responsible for the debts incurred; and in the
Northwest, where the activity had been the greatest, the order almost
disappeared.

Although the Grange had a mushroom growth, it nevertheless exerted a
real and enduring influence upon farmers both as individuals and as
members of a class. Even the experiments in cooperation, disastrous
though they were in the end, were not without useful results. While they
lasted they undoubtedly effected a considerable saving for the farmers.
As Grange agent