secretary's annual report, 190 i. 15 



short-term members on our roll. These various classes added to- 

 gether make a total of 1001. One thousand members, the number 

 to which we have as an association for a number of years hoped to 

 attain, is approximately as large a membership roll as can be car- 

 ried to advantage with the present printing resources. This state- 

 ment is not made to discourage from further efforts in increasing 

 the membership, as we shall in some way provide for the necessary 

 printing required to carry on this increased work. 



The past year the Farmers' Institute has contributed 73 new 

 members to the society, as against 151 in the previous year; the 

 falling off being accounted for by the absence of Mr. A. K. Bush, 

 the lecturer on horticulture at the Farmers' Institute, who has so 

 zealously promoted this work, his presence being required in the 

 state legislature, of the lower house of which he is a member. I un- 

 derstand that Mr. Bush is to be with the Farmers' Institute again 

 this winter, and we shall expect to hear from him. The Farmers' 

 Institutes furnish a means of disposing to the best advantage of 

 any surplus magazines belonging to the society, and besides this 

 we distribute there a sufficient number cf fruit lists of the society 

 to furnish one copy to every attendant at the institute who de- 

 sires it. 



There has been during the past year something of a falling 

 off in the returns from the local societies : the Southern Minnesota 

 Society return thirty-four memberships; the Meadow Vale Horti- 

 cultural Club at Elk River fourteen; the South Dakota Society, 

 which affiliates with us, thirty; making a total of seventy-eight from 

 this source. I have not the exact figures at hand of the year be- 

 fore, but the aggregate is somewhat less. 



There have been three more applications during the year for 

 the privilege of competition in the $1,000 prize offered by this 

 society for seedling apples. The chairman of the committee who 

 has this matter in charge will doubtless report more fully in re- 

 gard to it. 



A matter which has occupied the attention of the secretary to 

 some extent during the year has been the Gideon Memorial Fund. 

 Material has been secured to make up the book which is to be 

 printed in connection with securing this fund, including in a general 

 way a sketch of the life of Mr. Gideon, description of his seedling 

 apples, the words of his fellow members at memorial exercises and 

 autograph letters from something near a dozen of the more promi- 

 nent pomologists of the country. The committee having this matter 

 in charge were unable to secure a good specimen of the "Wealthy" 

 last winter from which to make the needed colored plate to go into 

 this volume, and indeed the results of the efforts in the direction of 



