THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN Practically all the farmers in the South, like those of the West, were chronically in debt, and after 1870 the general tendency of the prices of agricultural products was downward.

In spite of largely increased acreage--partly, to be sure, because of it--the total returns from the larger crops were hardly so great as had been received from a much smaller cultivated area.

The Southern farmer began to feel helpless and hopeless.

Though usually suspicious of every movement coming from the North, he turned readily to the organization of the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange.

In fact, the hopeless apathy of the Southern farmer observed by Oliver Hudson Kelley, an agent of the Bureau of Agriculture, is said to have determined him to found the order.