f drought or plague both state and national Granges were generous
in donations for the sufferers; in 1874, when the Mississippi River
overflowed its banks in its lower reaches, money and supplies were sent
to the farmers of Louisiana and Alabama; again in the same year relief
was sent to those Patrons who suffered from the grasshopper plague west
of the Mississippi; and in 1876 money was sent to South Carolina to
aid sufferers from a prolonged drought in that State. These charitable
deeds, endearing giver and receiver to each other, resulted in a better
understanding and a greater tolerance between people of different parts
of the country.

The meetings of the local Granges were forums in which the members
trained themselves in public speaking and parliamentary practice.
Programs were arranged, sometimes with the help of suggestions from
officers of the state Grange; and the discussion of a wide variety
of topics, mostly economic and usually concerned especially with the
interests of the farmer, could not help being stimulating, even if
conclusions were sometimes reached which were at variance with orthodox
political economy. The Grange was responsible, too, for a great increase
in the number and circulation of agricultural journals. Many of
these papers were recognized as official organs of the order and, by
publishing news of the Granges and discussing the political and economic
phases of the farmers' movement, they built up an extensive circulation.
Rural postmasters everywhere reported a great increase in their mails
after the establishment of a Grange in the vicinity. One said that after
the advent of the order there were thirty newspapers taken at his office
where previously there had been but one. Papers for which members
or local Granges subscribed were read, passed from hand to hand, and
thoroughly discussed. This is good evidence that farmers were forming
the habit of reading. All the Granger laws might have been repealed; all
the schemes for cooperation might have come to naught; all the moral and
religious teachings of the Grange might have been left to the church;
but if the Granger movement had created nothing else than this desire
to read, it would have been worth while. For after the farmer began to
read, he was no longer like deadwood floating in the backwaters of the
current; he became more like a propelled vessel in midstream--sometimes,
to be sure, driven into turbulent waters, sometimes tossed about