planting for extraordinarily beautiful and valuable timber.

Patience is what it takes, and faith. Trees are an example to us. If we could only look at the procession of the centuries with the eyes of the sequoias, we should see creation moving on marvelously with magnificent fruitfulness, and we should take courage.

Has the process of evolution been more successful with plants than with the human race? Should benevolent creation fail at its highest point? Certainly it should not. Nevertheless it certainly will fail there so long as so large a body of the race is undernourished, ill-born, hopelessly submerged—dragging downward rather than lifting upward.

Who knows the total answer? Education, of course, is a part of it—in industry, in eugenics, in moral responsibility. But you can't preach education effectively to a starving or half-starved man or child. The multiplication of population, the better distribution of goods throughout the world (which means in the end the avoidance of extremes of over and under-production)—these are the world's next greatest problems. I personally have the feeling that we are on the verge of an almost unthinkable increase in food productiveness through chemurgy's better and more complete use of plant life. We shall yet learn to gauge population to food supplies and food to population. Both are essential.

We need more plant breeders and more organic chemists at work on food supply all over the world. We need more people of good will and long vision, fewer political and social parasites; more producers.

Singularly, at the very moment of writing these words, a letter from a well known plant breeder is dropped upon my desk. In it he turns down the idea of an hypothetical executive position which most people would regard as promotion. The importance and interest of his work is so great in its own right that he would not think of changing.

That is what I mean. We need more of his kind in the world. It is hoped that in this Association such men may find the kindredship and comradeship they so richly earn.

This was the spirit with which our Association was organized by Dr. Robert Morris, Dr. Deming, and a few far-sighted men in the early days of this century and carried on by them, by Mr. Reed, Dr. Zimmerman, Professor Neilson and their kind since. We salute them all. Their works follow and honor them by their multiplied fruits.

I shall not take the time in this full program to review the events of the past year. Some of our speakers will do this far better than I. But I wish to greet our visitors and the new members who may not have been with us before. We hope you will feel very much at home in our family of kindred minds.

Also, these remarks would not be complete without recognition of the efforts of those who unselfishly and unstintingly have given of their time and strength to this important work: our Secretary, Joe McDaniel! You all know him by his exceptional service to us all. (Let's rise and give him a hand.) And while we are on our feet—one of the best treasurers any organization ever had, efficient, kindly, but a veritable watch-dog of the Treasury, Mr. Snyder! Also a hand to the members of our important committees, Mr. Chase, Dr. MacDaniels, Mr. Slate, Mr. Stoke—I can't name or praise them all as they deserve. The NNGA could not possibly be what it is without them.

And now let us get on to the business before us.

Secretary's Report

J. C. McDANIEL, Nashville, Tennessee

The membership of the Association seems to be increasing fairly steadily. When I checked the mailing list early last October, it had 667 names, as compared with 691 listed in the 37th Annual Report. When I left Nashville last week, the number had increased to 742, according to my stenographer's latest count. There have been some discontinued memberships, as will happen almost every year in any organization, but the new members have more than compensated for them, in numbers.

We did not add up a total on all the mail sent out in response to inquiries, but it has been voluminous. Close to 800 requests for our nut nursery list have been received solely as a result of Mr. Stoke's Southern Agriculturist chestnut article in last February's issue, and they are still trickling in. Some new memberships have resulted from these contacts, but more have come as a result of our column in the American Fruit Grower, and a Chinese chestnut article in The Flower Grower early last spring, which gave our Association a boost.

Some members have said they did not find their American Fruit Grower subscriptions of much value to them, particularly since the inauguration of The Nutshell, our news bulletin which has been issued four times since the last annual meeting. I will take some of the blame for this, since as editor of The Nutshell, I am somewhat in the position of competing with myself as columnist for the Fruit Grower. Space is limited in the latter publication, too, and sometimes publication of the "Nut Growers News" column is deferred a month or two, and again, I have been known to miss a deadline. Most of the columns, as in the previous years, are digests of material previously given in our Annual Reports. This practice seems to be justified as a matter of keeping nut news before the orcharding public and as a means of attracting some new memberships for the Association. I do not know of a better conditioned list of prospects than the more than 150,000 American Fruit Grower subscribers all over the continent, who are at least interested in some kind of fruiting trees or plants. In that many, by the law of averages, are many with some interest in nuts. Several hundred will write to the secretary or other N.N.G.A. members who are mentioned during the year, and at least a few score normally will join us.

This does not minimize the desirability of having other publicity outlets. More of you who have a knack at writing should try your own contributions to national, regional or even community-wide publications. Even short letters to the editor, in such cases, may be read by "kindred spirits," and you will be read by men and women whose interest in nut trees (even though it may have been a dormant interest) will be stimulated to the extent of becoming N.N.G.A. members. Then it is up to our officers, the program committee members, and our contributors to keep them interested enough to renew their memberships another year!

Your comments on The Nutshell have been quite flattering to its editor. You all can help make it a better publication by contributing short original observations or clippings of good items on hardy nut trees from other sources.

There is a continuing shortage apparent in the supply of good named varieties of hardy nut trees in nearly all areas. This seems particularly the case with Chinese chestnuts. Few propagators at present have them in even enough quantity to catalogue, and the demand which has been built up by the good publicity on chestnuts exhausts most nurseries' supplies each spring before all orders can be filled. Our nursery list in the Winter issue of The Nutshell has gone to some 2,000 people and has helped the nurserymen to sell out their trees quickly. We hope this will lead to a sound expansion in the commercial propagation of good nut trees.

I should again call attention to our affiliation with the American Horticultural Society. This enables our members in good standing to receive their good quarterly publication, The National Horticultural Magazine, for only $3.50 a year. You may obtain your affiliate membership through our Treasurer, or directly from the American