40 



Mr. Kains : Rochester, as a good many of you know, Is the 

 center of the fruit industry in western New York. Right here is 

 also the scene of one of the greatest fights to get an association on a 

 paying basis that ever occurred. Some of you probably know that 

 away back in the fifties Patrick Barry and Mr. Worter and several 

 others of the fruit growers got together and formed the Western 

 New York Horticultural Society. Gradually people came in and 

 took an interest in the work but, as always in the beginning, there 

 was trouble to make ends meet and Mr. Barry and some of the 

 others put their hands in their pockets to keep the association going. 

 At last it got so bad and the amount of the deficit was so great that 

 it was decided to have a closed meeting, no one to be admitted except 

 those who had actually paid their one dollar membership fee. The 

 year that it was announced that this would be put into effect the fol- 

 lowing year there was all kinds of a fuss at the meeting. The next 

 year the people came there in a crowd to see if the rule was going to 

 be put in effect and the result was the largest meeting the association 

 had ever had. The only men and women who got inside the door 

 had paid their dollar. That was the first year that the association 

 got on its feet. One other method that could be used to spread the 

 love of nut growing would be to have the association offer a nut tree 

 to different schools where they would plant it as an Arbor Day tree. 

 In that way the children would learn the value of the grafted nut 

 tree arid the value of real first-class nuts. The result would be that 

 other people would become interested in grafted nuts and thus 

 extend the interest in the whole nut-growing proposition, and your 

 membership would most likely increase. (Applause.) 



The President : I will ask for nominations from the floor for 

 the nominating committee. 



Mr. Pomeroy, Dr. Morris, Mr. Olcott, Mr. Rick and Mr. Patter- 

 son nominated and elected. 



The President : The next order of business is to call for the 

 reports of any of the standing committees. 



The Secretary : The chairman of the committee on incorpo- 

 ration, Mr. Littlepage, wrote me not long ago that he was taking 

 active steps to incorporate the association. I don't know whether 

 Mr. O'Connor may know if Mr. Littlepage has done anything about 

 it or not. 



Mr. O'Connor: I can't say about that. 



