Horatio Raven himself was there. There was a barrel of good, hard cider on tap in the barn, and every few minutes Mr. Raven could be seen conducting one or two acquaintances quietly over to the cellar, where there were other things on tap. Cigars were passed around, and the good cheer which was provided became so inextricably mingled with the enthusiasm which had been aroused, that no farmer could tell which was which. It only sufficed that when they went away each one was profoundly convinced that J. Rufus Wallingford was the Moses who should lead the farmers of America out of their financial Wilderness. During the next two or three days nearly three hundred letters left Truscot and Mapes counties, inviting nearly three hundred farmers in the great wheat belt, extending from the Rockies to the Appalachians, to take full sixty per cent. more for their produce than the average price they had always been receiving, to invite others to receive like benefits, and all to accept this boon without money and without price. It was personal solicitation from one man to another who knew him, and the first flood that went out reached every wheat-growing State in the Union. Within a week, names and requests for further information began pouring in upon Horatio Raven, Secretary, and the card index drawers in the filing cabinet, originally bought in jest, became of actual service. One, then two, then three girls were installed. A pamphlet was printed explaining the purpose of the Farmers' Commercial Association, and these were sent to all "members," J. Rufus Wallingford furnishing both the printing and the postage. Through the long winter the president of that great association was constantly upon the road, always in his corduroy suit and his broad felt hat, with his trousers tucked neatly into his seal-leather boots. His range was from Pennsylvania to Nebraska and from Minnesota to Texas, and everywhere his destination was some branch nucleus of the Farmers' Commercial Association where meetings had been arranged for him. Each night he addressed some body of skeptical farmers who came wondering, who saw the impressive and instantly convincing "Judge" Wallingford; who, listening, caught a touch of that magnetic thrill with which he always imbued his auditors, and who went away enthusiastic to carry to still further reaches the great work that he had planned. By the holiday season he had visited a dozen States and had addressed nearly a hundred sub-organizations. In each of these he gave the chain letters a new start, and the December meeting of the central organization of the Farmers' Commercial Association was also a Christmas celebration in the barn of that progressive and self-sacrificing and noble farmer, J. Rufus Wallingford.