  The Association was called to order at 10 a. m. Thursday October 7th by the President, Hon. William S. Linton, of Saginaw, Michigan, in the auditorium of the New National Museum. The President: It has been something of an effort for me to reach here at ten o'clock in order to meet the obligations of the program as it was only a few days ago that I was in lower California very near the Pacific Ocean in old Mexico. As I turned about to come back toward the East the thought came into my mind that I must be in Washington D. C. at the annual meeting of the Northern Nut Growers Association at ten o'clock on Thursday morning October 7. Traveling over three thousand miles I was fortunate enough to get here just two minutes before the ten o'clock hour so the connections you will see were close. The paper that your president is to present comes at a later place on the program so we will proceed with the business session at once. The first thing on the program is the report of the Secretary and Treasurer.
The above are records of receipts and expenditures for 10 months and are about 82% of those for the period covered by the previous report, 2 years 3 months. There has been an earnest attempt to carry on the work of the Secretary-Treasurer in a more aggressive manner than before. A bulletin aiming to give up to date information on nut growing, Bulletin No. 5, has been issued and has gone well. While it has been sold, no attempt has been made to make money on it but simply to make it pay its way and apparently it is going to do that and assist in spreading information about the work of the Association. Sixty-six new members have joined the Association since the date of the last meeting, making 476 since organization, of which we have 199, and of whom 277 have dropped out. A few former members have joined since the date of the last report which apparently accounts for the strange fact that increase in membership (128 to 199) is greater than the number of new members. Following out the plan outlined at the Battle Creek Convention, the work of the Secretary-Treasurer has begun to be divided, the undersigned taking the duties of Treasurer and the Nut Contests and Dr. Deming taking the Conventions and the work of the Secretary proper until the expected action of the present convention shall formally divide the work of the Secretary-Treasurer and create the offices of Secretary and Treasurer. Respectfully submitted, The President: This is a very good report, complete in every detail, and unless other action is desired, it will be received and recorded in the minutes of the meeting. Mr. Reed, you are chairman of the committee that had in charge the tree-planting bill in order that it might be made uniform throughout the country. Have you a report to make? Mr. Reed: Mr. President, the committee members have been over that individually but have not had an opportunity to discuss it together. If a full report can be had a little later I think that would be more satisfactory. So far as I have been able to go into it the law seems to about cover the ground. I could not make any suggestions as to how it could be improved. I happen to know that the author of the bill, who is our president, has been called upon by several other states to discuss such a law for those states, and I think he is in the best position to tell us if there are any holes in it. If we can have the consent of the house we will defer a full report until we can discuss the matter with our president and with our committee as a whole. The President: We will take that course unless there are objections. The communications received by the acting secretary will be filed and printed in the proceedings. If there are no vice-presidents present who are prepared to make reports that order will be passed. At this time should come the appointment of committees but I think it would be well to defer that business until we can consult as to the membership of the committees. The next in order will be some remarks by Mr. Littlepage about the proposed afternoon excursion. The Acting Secretary: The speakers are Dr. Van Fleet, Mr. Littlepage and Professor Close. I have here the resume of Dr. Van Fleet and I think that it would be better perhaps to read the report of Dr. Van Fleet at once as it may have some bearing on the remarks of Mr. Littlepage and Professor Close. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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