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maple, or a basswood, or an elm, but his lot won't look different from 

 any other. If all the ladies in town dressed in the same calico and the 

 same cut you would not know whose wife was who. This idea of 

 having all the yards, all the lots, all the places look alike, is wrong. 

 You might as well have your home look distinctive and if you will 

 take that idea, to have your place stand out as a place distinct in hor- 

 ticulture on your street, in your block, or in your city, you can ap- 

 peal to civic pride. You must appeal to something besides dollars and 

 cents. You must appeal to their public spirit, their civic pride. Then 

 you can get them interested. A great many people are proud of their 

 city and there are a great many people who can very easily say with 

 Paul, " I am a citizen of no mean city." 



Keep at it and take advantage of this offer of Mr. Jones. I 

 believe by following those lines you can very easily go out and 

 get five or ten members apiece. 



Mr. Bixby : I don't want to throw cold water on any idea that 

 is going to increase the membership but it seems to me that there 

 are some objections to the proposed plan. In the first place the 

 association has gone on record as favoring largely the planting of 

 grafted trees. Now on the proposed plan the minute we get a new 

 member in we have to send him a seedling tree. That does not seen 

 to me the best thing to do. In the second place, I have had a good 

 many years' experience in merchandising and it has always worked 

 out with me that people do not much appreciate what they get for 

 nothing. You can do this if a man is going to buy a certain kind of 

 goods, by offering him an inducement, giving him something for 

 nothing you can make him buy more than he would otherwise ; but 

 if a man who has never had a certain kind of goods, generally speak- 

 ing you can't sell them to him by offering him a prize with them. 



In the case suggested by Mr. Spencer, where a member working 

 in a certain location could club with others and get several new 

 members, why that hasn't the same objection. I do think that it 

 would be a fine thing if the members in the different sections each 

 agreed to get five or ten members, go after them and get them. I 

 think that would be fine. And if they are willing to be responsible 

 at the end of the year if they don't get them and pay two dollars 

 apiece for the ones they don't get, why that would help out the 

 treasury. 



Mr. Smith : Mr. Chairman, I am rather in favor of the pre- 

 mium plan. In this great state of New York there exists an organ- 

 ization at Geneva known as the New York State Fruit Testing Co- 

 operative Association. In order to get members they offer pre- 

 miums, a yearly premium. The year that I joined the association 

 they sent me a new apple which had been tried out and found to be 

 a very desirable fruit. They named it the " Tioga " variety. The 

 next year they sent me as a premium twelve new raspberries that had 

 been tested first by the Geneva Experiment Station, a branch of 

 the agricultural college, and then by this association of fruit growers. 



