Unique among fraternal orders, the Grange has emphasized in a most helpful way the instruction of the people in all matters of popular interest, particularly on subjects relating to farming and the farm home. It has immeasurably broadened the horizons of countless farm women and has thus raised the whole level of rural life in many places. In promoting social fellowship in countless ways it has relieved the bareness of a life of toil and its plans for wholesome recreation have greatly enriched the community life. After years of meager opportunity, country folks are apt to go to social extremes, and the Grange's greatest danger in some places seems to be to yield to the pleasure-loving spirit rather than to serve all the vital needs of rural people. II. Business Cooperation. _Modern Rural Cooperative Movements_ The rather reckless plunge of the Grange, in its earlier years, into the untried schemes of business cooperation expressed the very general belief of farmers that somehow their common interests demand cooperative enterprise to gain real success. It is a mighty truth. They blundered only in details of method. In an age of trust consolidation, in which manufacturing and commercial interests have attained wonderful development and success by merging their resources and their operations under united management, the spirit of cooperation has slowly but inevitably made its way in rural life. But "rampant individualism" dies hard; and most farm communities are still competitive rather than cooperative. In recent years however there has been a most encouraging increase of cooperation in all important rural interests, which indicates that the old individualism is doomed. In 1907 there were over 85,000 agricultural cooperative societies with a membership of three million different farmers (excluding duplicates); a large proportion of the total farm operators of the country, and doubtless the most progressive of them all. This number included 1,000 cooperative selling agencies; 2,400 cooperative creameries and cheese factories; 1,800 community grain elevators; 4,000 purchasing societies; 15,000 telephone companies on cooperative lines; 15,650 cooperative insurance companies and some 30,000 cooperative irrigation projects.