Grange had previously reckoned in terms of hundreds of new
lodges, it now began to speak of thousands. State Granges were
established in States where the year before the organization had
obtained but a precarious foothold; pioneer local Granges invaded
regions which hitherto had been impenetrable. Although the only
States which were thoroughly organized were Iowa, Minnesota,
South Carolina, and Mississippi, the rapid spread of the order
into other States and its intensive growth in regions so far
apart gave promise of its ultimate development into a national
movement.

This development was, to be sure, not without opposition. When
the Grangers began to speak of their function in terms of
business and political cooperation, the forces against which they
were uniting took alarm. The commission men and local merchants
of the South were especially apprehensive and, it is said,
sometimes foreclosed the mortgages of planters who were so
independent as to join the order. But here, as elsewhere,
persecution defeated its own end; the opposition of their enemies
convinced the farmers of the merits of the Grange.

In the East, several circumstances retarded the movement. In the
first place, the Eastern farmer had for some time felt the
Western farmer to be his serious rival. The Westerner had larger
acreage and larger yields from his virgin soil than the Easterner
from his smaller tracts of well-nigh exhausted land. What crops
the latter did produce he must sell in competition with the
Western crops, and he was not eager to lower freight charges for
his competitor. A second deterrent to the growth of the order in
the East was the organization of two Granges among the commission