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ship of about 100. The annual expenditures are between $600.00 

 and $700.00. Of these expenditures about $300.00 is for 

 printing the annual report, $200.00 or so for the convention and 

 $100.00 for miscellaneous expenses of postage, printing, etc. These 

 expenses are exceedingly modest. We do not even pay our secretary a 

 salary, which we really should. The balance, $300.00 per year, has 

 been made up by contributions from members who believe the associa- 

 tion to be doing worth while work and are willing to contribute in 

 this way. 



This method of financing is far from satisfactory, and yet I know 

 5f no religious, social or scientific organization, where I am closely 

 enough informed to know the real inside workings, where financing 

 in the final analysis is not conducted on this plan. It may be dis- 

 guised in the form of memberships of different classes where some 

 members pay several times what others do, or as in churches where 

 members are expected to give "as they are able", but when you get 

 right down to tlie inside facts, it is a faithful few who stand behind 

 and keep things going. In the excejitional case we sometimes hear 

 of the exception is because some individual, perhaps the secretary, 

 contributes in labor far above what he is paid for, and perhaps 

 through his efforts may seemingly make an organization self-support- 

 ing, each member paying only a predetermined membership fee. This, 

 however, only proves the rule above, for in such a case it is the "one" 

 instead of "a faithful few" who is standing behind and keeping things 

 going. 



Some remarkable instances of early bearings have come to our 

 attention during the past year. A Griffin hickory set out in the fall 

 of 1926 is bearing two nuts at this writing, and a Saugatuck butter- 

 nut 30 inches high is bearing two nuts. While these are unusual, par- 

 ticularly the hickory, which is proverbially slow in coming into bear- 

 ing, it has shown that under proper conditions of soil, climate and 

 attention, grafted trees will bear as early as apple trees, and that no 

 one need be deterred from planting nut trees for fear it will take from 

 20 to 25 years before they will bear. Data have been accumulating 

 as to the yields that may be expected from nut trees, at least what 

 certain nut trees have done. It is expected that much information of 

 this nature will be brought out at this meeting. While records of the 



