248 State Horticultural Society. 



since 1893, the date of our incorporation, and have kept in communication 

 with our Society. There are others from whom we have not had re- 

 sponses, whose names are not here given. 



It has never been the plan or custom of the Society to drop members 

 from the roll because they fail to pay up their dues for any year, and 

 therefore any member who has been a member in previous years, has 

 always been considered a member in good standing whenever he pays up 

 his dues for the year in which he attends the meeting. 



This list of members comprises only a small portion of our workers 

 or correspondents or helpers. We have a list of over 3,000 names of the 

 best fruit growers in the State, with the number of acres that each one has 

 planted in apples and peaches and berries, and with nearly every one of 

 these are we in correspondence, sending them the State reports, crop re- 

 ports, programs and other items of information or of importance. During 

 World's Fair year they did us loyal service by helping in our grand ex- 

 hibit, and some of their names were given in the list of awards. 



Besides this, we have a long list of county societies, and to them we 

 send packages of our State reports, by express, 10 to 60 volumes to each 

 society, to be distributed by their local secretaries. These members of the 

 local societies, and their correspondents, are entitled to just the same con- 

 sideration as members of our State Society, and have always received the 

 same attention as members in the distribution of matter from the Secre- 

 tary's office, in the collection of fruit notes and prospects, and in all the 

 advantages accorded any member. The eltort and desire of the State So- 

 ciety has been not to build up a great paid membership, but to foster and 

 assist the organization of local societies, the building up the local inter- 

 ests and the distribution of all printed matter through these societies 

 and these correspondents. This has been the best plan for the local soci- 

 ety, and the State Society also, because it has developed a local interest 

 which has done the counties much good in the way of land development,^ 

 planting orchards, selling of fruits and co-operation in business matters. 



Every citizen of the State has been given the best that the Society 

 has to offer. All that was needed was to ask for it, while in the case of 

 members, they paid $1.00 per year for it; such has been our treatment of 

 the 3,000 fruit growers of the State on our list. 



It has always been the work of the Society to give every man in 

 the State all the information and assistance that it was possible to give, 

 whether he was a member of the State Society or not. It has not been 

 the desire of the State to get members, but to get people interested in 

 fruit growing and to let others know of the opportunities Missouri 

 offers to the fruit growers, and to give them the proper information and 



