comparatively small membership would have to double up on membership committee.

President Reed: Have you any suggestions as to whom you want on that committee?

Mr. Bixby: Those committees, with the exception of the nominating committee, are appointed by the president. I think myself that the new president appoints them.

President Reed: My idea was to appoint for this meeting and help Mr. Olcott out.

Mr. Olcott: I suggest Mr. McGlennon and Mr. Jones as two of the members.

President Reed: Let it stand as it is with the three and give the chairman power to appoint two more later.

Mr. McGlennon: Can the secretary tell us how many members there are?

Mr. Bixby: One hundred sixty-four notices of this meeting were sent out. There are 128 paid up members.

Mr. Olcott: On the matter of membership, I wonder if the association could suggest some inducement for membership, or summarize the inducements. As you know, the American Association of Nurserymen has been desirous of more members, and they found it very advisable to outline definitely the benefits of membership in that association. I am wondering if that has been done recently and could not be emphasized in some way to the advantage of larger membership. You have got to do something more than say that there is in existence an association devoted to these purposes and everybody is invited to come in. Maybe the secretary has something on that line.

Mr. Bixby: I have no suggestion. It is very evident that there is a greatly increased interest in nut growing over what there was when I first took up the office. That is very clearly brought out by the amount of mail received. You may know that Capt. Deming, when in the service, took the position of editing the nut department of the American Fruit Grower. I saw him recently and it looks to me as if, as editor of that department, he is answering about as many correspondents on nuts and trying to boost the association in that way as he did when he was secretary before. And that would appear to be in addition to the communications that are coming to me now.

Mr. Olcott: There is interest. We get at the Journal office a great quantity of inquiries but only a small per cent of them result in memberships and subscriptions, and while this interest is so strong, ought not this association to study that which is something of a problem—perhaps something that ought to be taken up in view of the interests and the benefits of the association shown.

President Reed: I think that is a good suggestion. I think they need something along that line. Is there anything else we want to bring up at this morning session?

Mr. McGlennon: Is this not a very good field to open up operations along that line, right here at Battle Creek? A large number of people who come here are people who eat nuts, and I believe that condition would resolve itself into a material advance of membership. I think we ought to get busy right here and see if we can not enlist the membership of a great number of the patrons of this institution.

Mr. Olcott: That was the principal object of the membership committee I suppose. My idea was to get the ideas of the individual members, put them together and present a broadside of benefits in this organization rather than have one man attempt to outline them.

Dr. Morris: There is an immense amount of interest. The question is how to get it together and formulate it in such a way that men will join. There is an enormous, large loose majority, and we must have a small compact minority to swing it as the Senators do down at Washington, you know. Prof. Murrill of the New York Botanical Garden told me that wherever he went (he is interested in mushrooms, that is his special subject) he had had no idea in the world there was so much interest of the public in mushrooms; yet when it comes to getting together members to form the base of an association to study the subject, he finds very few members. It is simply because men haven't got the habit, and we have got in some way to give direction to that in such a way that it will be focused and concentrated on some one objective point. How to do it, I don't know.

Mr. Bixby: Dr. Kellogg suggested that at the meeting this evening there will be the largest number of people, not members, that there has been at any meeting; and he said he had had requests from people that they wanted to hear Dr. Morris, and they wanted to hear Prof. Cajori who used to be here, and he asked me to change those from this afternoon to this evening in order to accomplish that, and I said we would switch the program. That was for that very purpose.

Mr. Olcott: Mr. President, it just occurred to me that in view of the number of inquiries we get, and I am sure the secretary gets, and I am also sure Dr. Deming gets from his articles, there is no doubt of the interest, yet the joining of this Northern Association, and the attendance of its single annual meeting, does not appeal to many. They do not find it convenient to attend the convention; they do not see any great amount of benefit in the membership. It occurs to me that if we had a list of state vice-presidents and each of those could provide for some local gathering of people interested in nut culture in the various communities; rather, I would say that if our members, as fast as we can increase our membership, wherever they are located, would form a nucleus of a little circle in their neighborhood, and have them affiliated with the Northern Association; it would accomplish this result. And afterward it occurred to me that perhaps that could be done through state vice-presidents. But what is really needed is to get them together in meetings. They won't come yet. They will when you get a larger membership, but they won't come to the annual meeting of this association where I think they would go to a community affair and talk over matters and refer difficult problems to the Northern Association of which they were affiliated members. In some way, a wheel within a wheel could work at it that way, and we could increase membership in that way.

Dr. Morris: It is a rule in psychology that you have got to have personal interest first. If Mr. Olcott's idea of having a local vice-president offer prizes, no matter how small, for nuts in the vicinity, and would also state that any one finding some remarkable nut would have that nut named after him to go down to all time, you would have two points there in self-interest. First, a five dollar prize to the best nut; next the name going rattling down through time in association with it. There are two points of personal interest. We may as well take it back to the basic principles and begin with the psychology of the situation.

Mr. Ketchum: Mr. President, in regard to these vice-presidents, that point looks to me very good for this reason. I saw it work out in the Minnesota State Horticultural Society. They had a vice-president in each congressional district. I was vice-president in the third district one year myself From them reports were sent from their district by people who were interested. They were asked to fill out blanks about conditions as they found them in their neighborhood and we got great good from it. Then this vice-president was to make a general district report from the reports sent him, and hand it in at the annual meeting. It was quite a success.