The total miscellaneous manufactures for the year 1911 amounted to upwards of one hundred and fifty million dollars in value; and the capital employed in such manufactures increased from fourteen million dollars in 1900 to sixty-three million in 1911. The total value of the eight principal crops of 1911 -- corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, barley, native hay, rye, and alfalfa -- was two hundred and eighteen million dollars. The cultivated area in 1911 was estimated at twenty-nine million acres, much more than half of the total area.
   According to the United States census report for 1911 the cultivated area was 29,046,765 acres. The estimate of the number of cattle in the state in 1911, was 2,229,976; of hogs, 4,979,784; of horses, 918,240; of sheep, 383,602; of chickens, 9,900,480. The output of canned vegetables and the production of popcorn are important items of commercial production.
   Ever since agriculture was established in Nebraska, corn has been its chief product, a normal annual yield now being about 200,000,000

Courtesy Nebraska State Journal

NEBRASKA'S STRATEGIC COMMERCIAL POSITION

bushels. However, wheat sown in the fall, commonly called winter wheat, has come to be a very important crop, and, on the whole, is surer than corn. This grain was on probation many years before it was accepted at its full value. The agent at the Council Bluffs sub-agency, situated on the Missouri river, nearly opposite Bellevue, in his report for 1845, says that, "A small lot of wheat sown last fall (1844) has done very well. The troops at old Council Bluffs formerly raised large crops of this grain, and the soil and climate seem as well adapted to it as they are to Indian corn." This was the first wheat cultivated in Nebraska so far as our records show; and it must have been raised in the period between 1819 and 1826, because the post -- Fort Atkinson -- was abandoned in 1827. Harvey W. Forman, farmer for the Sauk and Fox Indians at the Great Nemaha agency, in his report dated September, 1853, says that he had sown about twenty acres of fall wheat on ground that had "laid over this season." In preparation he had plowed the

ground well twice, then harrowed it, and next rolled it with a heavy roller. His corn that year yielded fifty bushels to the acre.
   The premium list of the Otoe Agricultural Society, published in the Nebraska News, September 28, 1858, offers a premium for the best five acres of fall wheat and a diploma for the best five acres of spring wheat. The Nebraska City News, of March 9, 1861, says that "the winter wheat in this section looks fine." The editorial opinion was that the heavy snows of the winter had kept it warm, and it was ready for a strong start. The Nebraska Advertiser, of July 4, 1861, says that some Nemaha county farmers harvested forty bushels of wheat per acre that year. The hot, dry weather in June injured spring wheat. In "the various parts of the territory fall wheat has produced much better than spring, not only this season, but for the past three years. We cannot understand the cause of the prejudice in the minds of many farmers against raising fall wheat." The same newspaper, of October 18, 1862, said that fall wheat that year yielded one-third more than the spring variety in Nebraska, and that its average for the last five years had been higher than that of spring wheat.
   The Daily State Journal, September 28, 1878, put the yield of fall wheat that year as 268,532 bushels; 45,370 bushels in the North Platte section, and 223,162 bushels in the South Platte. The yield of spring wheat for that year was 10,752,668 bushels in the South Platte and 5,471,527 bushels in the North Platte.
   Dr. George L. Miller usually threw the whole power of his enthusiasm into his advocacy of any Nebraska enterprise, and the final recognition of this grain as one of the most important crops in Nebraska is largely due to his persistent preaching in its favor. The Herald (weekly) of August 10, 1870, says that this crop had "hitherto been a failure," because it had winter killed. The editor -- Dr. Miller -- advocated deep planting as a remedy and suggested drilling in the wheat. This method of planting was generally adopted later, and was apparently a condition precedent to the successful cultivation of the grain in question. The Omaha Daily Bee, of October 3, 1892, remarks upon the growing importance of fall wheat. The state was now producing 18,000,000 bushels a year, and the Bee expressed the opinion that the yield might reach 100,000,000 bushels. There was a sudden increase in the production about 1880 and a still larger increase about 1900. According to the records of the department of agriculture at Washington, the average annual yield for the period of 1870 to 1879, inclusive, was 5,372,559; for the period 1880-1889, inclusive, 18,608,697; 1890-1899, 18,560,914; 1900-1909, 43,378,151. According to the estimates of the Nebraska labor bureau the yield in 1906 was 45,389,263; in 1909, 46,444,735. In the last two years the yield has not held its own on account of drought conditions in a part of the state.

   The Rocky Mountain locust during the three years from 1874 to 1876 threatened the practicability of carrying on agriculture in Nebraska, inasmuch as there seemed to be plausible reason for fearing, if not believing, that the invasion by this pest might be continuous. A thorough acquaintance with the history of Nebraska, however, would have largely allayed this fear because it discloses that the immigration of these insects was not regular but at periodical intervals. In his famous Ash Hollow campaign of 1855, General William S. Harney and his command, when in camp near Court House Rock, now in Morrill county, observed that the air was full of grasshoppers; and they were ail inch thick on the ground. Of course they destroyed "every blade of grass." W. A. Burleigh, in his report as agent for the Yankton Indians for 1864, says that crops were promising in that part of the country until the grasshoppers came in the latter part of July and destroyed every vestige of them throughout the territory. The air was filled with the insects so thickly as to produce a hazy appearance of the atmosphere, and every tree, shrub, fence, and plant was literally covered with them. In many places they carpeted the ground to the depth of from

one inch to two inches. They appeared in a cloud from the northeast extending over a belt some 275 miles wide and passed on towards the southwest, leaving the country as suddenly as they came after an unwelcome visit of three or four days. Mr. George S. Comstock made the statement in 1910 that grasshoppers did great damage on the Little Blue river, where he resided, in 1862 and 1864. Captain Eugene F. Ware relates in his history of the Indian war of 1864 (p. 275), that in August, 1864, at Fort Laramie -- then within Nebraska territory -- the air was filled with grasshoppers. They were bunched together in swarms like bees. He saw a cluster of the insects as big as a man's hat on the handle of a spade. Indian women were roasting, drying, and pounding them into meal to be made into bread. William M. Albin, superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Joseph, Missouri, reported in October, 1864, that "in consequence of the extreme drought, the backwardness of the spring, and immense swarms of grasshoppers, the crops in Kansas have been a partial, and in Nebraska and Idaho, a total failure." In his report for the same year, Benjamin F. Lushbaugh, agent of the Pawnee Indians, said that, "swarms and myriads of grasshoppers" came to that part of the territory in August, and they had not left a green thing. There had been no rain during the entire season until the last of June and none after that of any benefit. Oats at the Pawnee agency were injured by grasshoppers in 1873, and the crops entirely destroyed by the pests in 1874. This destruction induced the 1,840 Indians of that tribe who remained at the agency to follow the 360 who had gone to Indian territory in the winter of 1873. The crops of the Otoe and Missouri Indians were entirely destroyed by grasshoppers and dry weather in 1868. In 1876 they destroyed the crops at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies in Nebraska.
   General Augur reported in 1868 that grasshoppers had entirely destroyed the gardens at Fort Kearny and Fort McPherson in Nebraska and also at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, and Camp Douglas, Utah. The Nebraska Advertiser, May 23, 1867, quotes statements from Missouri newspapers that grasshoppers were destructive in parts of that state; and they did some damage in Nemaha county.
   The Omaha Herald (weekly), July 11, 1870, said that not since 1857, until last fall, was Nebraska visited by grasshoppers. They had usually appeared in great armies in the fall. They first appeared this year in the spring and seemed to have been born among us. The law of their migration was from north to south, rarely in the reverse direction. They had never appeared in damaging force east of Grand Island or north of the Platte river. "This year entire fields of wheat in Cass, Otoe, Nemaha, and Richardson have been utterly destroyed while others have been seriously damaged. Their numbers may be judged by the statement of a friend that in one spot he pushed a knife blade through a solid layer of junior grasshoppers while the air was swarming with the busy seniors."
   The Nebraska Commonwealth, August 15, 1868, noted that a grasshopper invasion in the neighborhood of Lincoln, lasting two days partially used up a good many fields of corn. The most destructive invasion, however, was that of 1874. On the 8th of September Governor Furnas issued a proclamation appointing a committee of twenty citizens of the state to receive and distribute all contributions for the aid of sufferers from the pest. In his proclamation the governor said that the state as a whole had reaped a fair harvest. Though the corn crop had been greatly damaged by drought, as well as grasshoppers, the wheat and generally other crops had been saved. Corn being the principal first crop of the settlers, the loss had fallen hardest on the frontier counties where the people "have not the means to maintain themselves and their families during the coming winter without outside help." He solicited contributions from the older and richer portions of the state" The drought had been almost universal throughout the world and had been more injurious in Nebraska than grasshoppers. The six hundred Granges in the state, twenty of them in the western part, began to gather relief data in September, 1874. Though most of the suffer-

ing was in the southwestern part, they reported York as one of the needy counties. At a meeting held in Lincoln, September 18th, J. Sterling Morton advocated making loans instead of gifts to the needy, and Alvin Saunders agreed with him. Colonel J. H. Noteware reported that he had visited twenty-seven counties and had received about five hundred letters asking for aid, but not as beggars. He estimated that there were 10,000 people in the state in need of contributions. Amasa Cobb, for the committee on organization, reported "Articles of Association and Incorporation of the Nebraska Relief and Aid Society," whose principal place of business should be at Omaha. The object of the association was to collect money, provisions, clothing, seeds, and other necessary articles and to distribute them "among the people of the western counties of the state who had been reduced to necessitous circumstances by the drought and grasshoppers of the past season." The capital stock of the association was fixed at $500,000, in shares of $1 each.
   In his message to the legislature, delivered January 8, 1875, Governor Furnas stated that cash receipts from all sources had been $37,279.73, and donations of various kinds of goods of the value of $30,800.73 had been received. The governor reported that all the railroads in the state, as well as those leading up to it, had transported donations free of charge. Generals Ord, Brisbin, Dudley, and Grover, of the regular army, had engaged in the work of relief with great zeal; the secretary of war had issued clothing to those in need of it through General Ord; many persons of the older states contributed nobly and very liberally to the relief fund; and the Nebraska Patrons of Industry organized a state relief association and kindred societies in the other states also were actively engaged in the charitable enterprise. A very large proportion of those in the border counties and most in need of relief had been soldiers in the Civil War.
   In his annual message to the legislature of 1877 Governor Silas Garber said that, contrary to scientific theories as to the habits and nature of the grasshoppers, they had again visited the state in the months of August and September, 1876; and although no serious damage was done immediately by the insects, yet they deposited great quantities of eggs from which there was apprehension for the safety of the crops. It was estimated that 5,000 persons in eleven frontier counties were almost wholly dependent upon charity during the winter of 1874-1875. The Daily State Journal of November 3, 1874, notes that contributions from Chicago, Cincinnati, and other commercial points were coming in. The Journal estimated that there were 10,000 people to be cared for and $1,500,000 would be required, not more than one-tenth of which could be raised by the relief society. Rations furnished by the organization would not buy coal, wood, shelter, or clothing. There had been a wholesale failure of corn -- mainly planted on sod -- and vegetables in a district running across the state from north to south and two hundred miles wide. The Journal argued that the legislature ought to spend $1,000,000 next spring in grading railroad lines so as to give these people remunerative work.
   Professor A. D. Williams was sent out by the State Journal to investigate conditions in the Republican valley, and his letters to the paper contained many harrowing stories of want and suffering. For example, an elderly woman said that she lived on a homestead near Rockton, Furnas county, with her husband who was sixty-eight years old. They had lost all their stock, except one yearling, by cattle fever. When she left home a few days before there was flour enough to make not more than five loaves of bread. "When that is gone we do not know how or where to get more except as aided." Her son (living near) had a wife and six children. They had one cow, one horse, and two yearlings, of the Texas breed, which he could not sell for anything, and two pigs, but nothing to feed to them. Fifty pounds of flour was his total supply for the winter. His children were nearly destitute of clothing and he could get no work to do. Another man had a family consisting of mother, wife, and six children. The mother

had been sick for a year. He had a team, two cows, and three pigs, but nothing to feed them. He had raised no wheat and only nine bushels of rye. He had 120 pounds of flour left and no meat, and could not get work. He was almost destitute of clothing, his feet being tied up in pieces of straw or cane sacks. He had come to the county three years ago with $1,600. Another said, "I am fifty-six years of age, have a wife and son (a young man), a cow, and one horse and nothing to feed them. I planted fifty-five acres of corn and ten bushels of potatoes but raised nothing." He had nothing whatever to subsist on except as aided.
   A statement of the Harlan County Aid Society showed that in Republican precinct there were 313 persons -- 186 adults and 127 children. There were 4,150 bushels of wheat, but mostly owned by a few persons; 55 bushels of corn; 490 bushels of oats; 432 of potatoes; 89 cows; 46 oxen; 121 horses; 9 mules; 213 hogs; young stock, 149; poultry, 2,311. Seed was needed for 2,796 acres, seventeen families needed help and seven were entirely destitute. In Spring Creek precinct eleven families were destitute and eight more would need help within a week. In Sappa precinct eleven families were destitute and there were thirteen more with but a single sack of flour a week ago. In Prairie Dog precinct nine families. were entirely destitute, three others would need help within thirty days, and seven others within sixty days. The secretary said that there was greater destitution in two precincts not reported than in Republican precinct. There were seventy families in the county entirely destitute and fifty-eight more would be in need within three weeks. Mr. J. M. McKenzie -- state superintendent of public instruction from 1871 to 1877 -- said that Furnas county was in worse condition than Harlan and clothing especially was needed there. "If any person doubts the reality let him do the people justice to visit them before he passes judgment."
   A woman of the neighborhood, with three children, called at the house in Furnas county where Professor Williams was stopping, to get a pail of salt. Their cow had died of starvation and she wanted to preserve the flesh for food. Her husband was absent hunting buffaloes. A man near Arapahoe had cultivated ninety acres of ground and got only a few beets. There were ten persons in his family, they had no money, and nothing to, wear but garments made of bagging. Another family of eleven had no shoes, were nearly destitute of clothes, and had been without bread for a week. Another man, near Republican City, got fourteen and one-half bushels from four acres of wheat; two ears of corn from eighteen acres; and five bushels of potatoes. The only article of food he had was seven or eight pounds of flour. "A lady of culture with her dress torn to rags above the knees, with neither stockings nor shoes and no flour in the house, when asked if she needed assistance, burst into tears and said: 'I hope we are not paupers yet. . .' An elderly gentleman with an old coat sleeve fashioned into a sort of turbaned cap, with his body garments almost literally in tatters, and some old boot legs rudely cut and tied over his feet, said he could get along for clothing, if they would only give his family something to eat."
   General Dudley had made the best investigation of conditions. He found that local agents, though generally honest and conscientious, were not accurate in their estimates. They always said "about." He estimated that about one-tenth of the people raised enough wheat for their actual need; another one-tenth had enough resources accumulated to carry them through; another one-tenth lived by hauling relief stores from the railroads; and the remaining seven-tenths on the upper Republican were dependent on relief for six or eight months. The local estimate of the population was as follows: Harlan county, 3000; Furnas county, 2,500; Red Willow, 1,000; Gosper, 260; Hitchcock, 200; total, 6,960. The correspondent thought there were probably 5,000 people in all in these counties, 3,500 of whom must be fed for six or seven months or starve. Franklin county was as bad, and also other counties north and northwest that were not included.

   In addition to the bonds and other aid provided by the state legislature, an account of which has already been given, the federal Congress in the early part of 1875 appropriated $30,000 in money for the purchase of rations, and clothing to the value of $150,000, to be distributed among the people of the several states which had suffered from grasshoppers, Nebraska received only her share of this federal aid.
   A convention to consider the grasshopper pest and to take action thereon was held at Omaha, October 25 and 26, 1876. An account of the ravages of the insect, in considerable detail, was prepared and signed by John S. Pillsbury, president of the convention, and Professors C. V. Riley and Pennock Pusey, secretaries. A memorial asking the federal Congress to establish a commission composed of three entomologists and three practical men of experience with the locusts, for the purpose of investigating the plague, and that the signal service be required to take observations of the movements of the insects, was signed by the governors of Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Dakota; by the state entomologists of Missouri and Illinois, respectively; by ex-Governor Furnas and ex-Governor Saunders; by Professors C. D. Wilbur and A. D. Williams of Nebraska; and by Professors Pennock Pusey and Allen Whitman of Minnesota. The memorial set forth that the grasshoppers overran sixteen states and territories in the year 1876; that many settlers in that section had suffered a total loss of crops for four successive years; and that the ravages of the insects had rapidly increased during the last twenty years.
   Repeated shortage of rainfall in 1890, 1893, and 1894 was disastrous to crops, especially in the western part of the state. On account of these losses a large number of people became dependent upon public charity, as in the period of grasshopper invasions. The legislature of 1891 authorized the issue of bonds to the amount of $100,000 to run five years at four per cent interest, for the purchase of seed grain and other supplies to be distributed to those who lost their crops in 1890, through a board of relief consisting of nine members.
   The same legislature authorized counties to use their surplus funds and to issue bonds for the purchase of supplies to be sold at cost to such sufferers, and it appropriated $100,000 from the state treasury for immediate relief. The legislature of 1895 appropriated $50,000 for food and clothing and $200,000 for the purchase and distribution of seed, and feed for teams. County boards were also authorized to issue bonds and use surplus funds for the latter purpose. In 1891 supplies were distributed in thirty-seven counties during about six weeks to an average of 8,000 families; in 1895, in sixty-one counties and to about 30,000 families. Donations amounting to $28,999.38 were received from people in all parts of the country.


   A record of the precipitation in Nebraska for the years from 1849 to 1902 inclusive shows that it is distributed with remarkable uniformity throughout this long period, probably more so than is commonly thought. A map prepared by the weather bureau of the University of Nebraska divides the state into six sections with reference to the amount of average annual precipitation covering a period of thirty-six years up to 1908 inclusive. The rainfall is highest in the southeastern section, reaching 30.21 inches; in the northeastern section it is 27.65; in the central section, which extends about as far east as the eastern boundary of Lincoln county, 24.64; the southwestern section, 23.22; the northwestern section, extending from near the western boundry of Holt county to the western border, 18.96; and the western section, which extends from the central section to the extreme western border of the state, 17.41. ¹

   In European countries reforestation had long been a public care; and that important duty has been tardily undertaken by our own federal government. In Nebraska afforestation (sic) was, from the first, instinctively and sedulously preached and practiced. The tree-planting impulse sprang from that clear and pressing necessity which has been acknowledged in a venerable aphorism as the mother of invention. Among the more superstitious Africans the Nebraska love and longing for trees would have developed into fetichism (sic). According to mythological tradition and poetical conceits groves have been the temples of the whole family of gods; but for the people of the Plains they promised a far more practical and substantial service in the form of physical shelter and fuel. This need and hope led to the offering of rewards for planting trees and to setting apart a day for inculcating planting precepts and further encouraging its practice.
   At the meeting of the state board of agriculture, held in Lincoln, Thursday, January 4, 1872, Mr. D. T. Moore offered the followlowing (sic) resolution:

    Resolved, That in order to encourage the planting of forest trees in the state of Nebraska, the State Agricultural Society will award premiums, in the year 1872 and every year thereafter, at the discretion of the board, to the person who will plant and cultivate the greatest number of acres in forest trees, said trees to be in a good, healthy, thrifty condition and not more than four feet apart each way, as follows: For the best five acres or more planted in 1872, sixty dollars; for the second best five or more acres planted in 1872, thirty dollars.
   J. Sterling Morton then offered the following:

    Resolved, that Wednesday, the 10th day of April, 1872, be and the same is hereby set apart and consecrated for tree planting in the state of Nebraska: and the state board of agriculture hereby name it "Arbor Day"; and, to urge upon the people of the state the vital importance of tree planting, hereby offer a special premium of one hundred dollars to the county agricultural society of that county in Nebraska which shall, upon that day, plant properly the largest number of trees, and a farm library of twenty-five dollars worth of books to that person who, on that day, shall plant properly in Nebraska the greatest number of trees.

   On motion of James T. Allan, newspapers of the state were requested to keep the Arbor Day resolution standing in their columns until the next April, "to call the especial attention of the people of the state to the importance of the matter from time to time."
   Though the treeless environment has from the first imbued the people of Nebraska with the tree planting spirit, these formal admonitions greatly stimulated its enthusiasm; and it was said that a million trees were planted in the state on the first Arbor Day. The Daily State Journal, April 11, 1872, said that James S. Bishop planted 10,000 cottonwood, soft maple, Vombardy poplar, box elder, and yellow willow trees, that day, on his farm southwest of Lincoln. In the season of 1869, Moses Sydenham, the well-known pioneer of Buffalo county, headed an advertisement in the Journal of evergreen and fruit trees with the slogan, "PLANT TREES! PLANT TREES! plant trees!" displayed in three graded lines.
   Sterling Morton afterward adopted an escutcheon for his stationery composed of the picture of a tree with this motto printed under it. There has been some dispute as to whether Mr. Morton really originated the Arbor Day idea. This probably grew out of the fact that many men simultaneously had in mind methods of this kind for promulgating tree planting. It would have been characteristic of Morton's alertness to catch and formulate the suggestion of this prevailing sentiment. At any rate, the phraseology of the Arbor Day resolution stamps Morton as its author. The next year -- 1873 -- the day was success fully observed without official notice. The state board of agriculture, at its January meeting, 1874, requested the legislature to make the second Wednesday of April of each year a legal holiday and governors to issue proclamations In the meantime, exhorting the people to observe the day by planting forest, fruit, or ornamental trees. Accordingly, on the 31st of March 1874, Governor Furnas issued a proclamation designating Wednesday, April 8th, of that year as Arbor Day. This was the first official

recognition of the event. Successive governors issued similar proclamations, annually, until the 22d day of April of every year -- the anniversary of Morton's birthday -- was made a legal holiday by act of the legislature of 1885.
   This Arbor Day conceit, first promulgated by the Nebraska state board of agriculture, was generally adopted by other states. Its usefulness lay chiefly in calling attention to the esthetic and economic value of trees and thus stimulating the planting habit. In two respects, however, its effect was more or less unfavorable. The trees were naturally planted hastily and therefore improperly and, in many of the states which adopted Mr. Morton's birthday as the anniversary, too late in the season; and it doubtless had a tendency to divert attention from the more important necessity and work of conserving forests and of reforestation on a scientific and methodical plan. Since the advent of scientific forestry, by governmental direction and support, observance of the day has fallen into desuetude.

    The first organization of the Farmers' Alliance in the United States occurred in the year 1879. Its principal activity was in the northwestern states, and its main object was to unite farmers for the purpose of promoting their economic interests, which involved political reform. The first Alliance for Nebraska was organized near Filley, Gage county, in 1880. The State Alliance was organized at Lincoln, in 1881, when E. P. Ingersoll of Johnson county was chosen for the first president and Jay Burrows of Gage county, the first secretary. In 1887 the State Alliance was organized as a secret society at a meeting held in Lincoln, when a constitution, by-laws, ritual, and declaration of principles were formulated and adopted. While the declaration was comprehensive and quite idealistic, surcharged with philanthropic sentiment and radical plans for economic reform, the hard times which began to be grievously felt in 1890 pushed the organization into practical politics. This movement naturally excluded other aims and broke up the organization of the society.
   The Alliance overshadowed and displaced the Patrons of Husbandry which at one time was active in Nebraska; but it no longer preserves an organization in the state. There are no available records of the proceedings of either of these important organizations, so that their historical data consist only of fragmentary newspaper paragraphs. The principal features of the history of the Alliance are involved in the story of the political career of the populist party in this volume. The following sketch of the Patrons of Husbandry, from the Daily State Journal, of December 21, 1876, is of some historical value. While the Alliance deliberately subverted its broader sociological aims by resolving itself into a political party, designing politicians deliberately broke into the Granges and this ended their usefulness and, probably, was instrumental in ending their existence:

   The Nebraska state grange, which met in this city at 2 o'clock Tuesday, is an organization that has attracted to itself a great deal of interest from all over the state, both within and without the order it represents. It was first organized in August, 1872, at which time subordinate granges existed principally in the river counties, and of these Cass county, led off considerably in point of numbers. There were a few in Saunders county and one, the first organized in the state, in Harlan county, on the Republican river, of which J. H. Painter, Esq., was master. At the first organization, Cass county, holding the balance of power among the delegates, secured the two chief offices in the state grange to herself, Hon. William B. Porter, of Plattsmouth, being elected master, and William McCraig, of Elmwood, being chosen secretary. Numerous deputies were appointed with power to organize subordinate granges in every township, and their efforts were rewarded with frequent meetings, to which the farmers and their wives, starved, as many of them were, for social entertainment and relaxation, very greatly gathered, heard the constitution and by-laws read and explained, listened to the honeyed words of the honest looking deputy, and, believing that they had at last found the panacea for all the ills that a farmer's life is subjected to, handed in their initiation fees, and were quickly instructed in all the mysteries of the ritual, signs, grips, and passwords, and were declared Patrons of Husbandry organized and ready for work. Thus grew the order. The deputies were active, and made