No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. xix 



interest in this work each year. With favorable conditions 

 there will doubtless be a new increase in average attendance. 

 On Nov. IG and 17, 1908, your secretary attended the 

 annual meeting of the National Association of Farmers' 

 Institute Workers, at Washington, D. C. The meeting was 

 as interesting as usual, and your secretary there had an 

 opportunity to meet with the workers from all over the 

 United States and from several of the Canadian provinces, 

 and it is to be hoped that he benefited from the exchange 

 of ideas to some degree, so that the work in Massachusetts 

 may have the advantage of suggestions derived from outside 

 sources. He was honored by election as president of the 

 association for the coming year, showing that the work in 

 Massachusetts is recognized as worthy of commendation, 

 which deduction is borne out by any analysis of the figures 

 of attendance and expenditure, as shown by the reports of 

 the officers in charge of the work in the various States and 

 provinces. 



Conference of New England Governors. 

 On Nov. 23 and 24, 1908, a conference of the Governors 

 of the New England States was held at Boston, with essays 

 by experts and discussion and speeches by delegates. The 

 official delegates consisted of the Lieutenants-Governor, the 

 Attorneys-General, Presidents of the State Senates and 

 Speakers of the State Houses of Representatives, the mem- 

 bers of Congress and United States Senators from the New 

 England States, with prominent citizens named by the Gov- 

 ernor of each State, the allotment for each State being two 

 for each United States Senator and Representative. The 

 object of the conference was to discuss and devise ways for 

 the conservation and improvement of our natural resources, 

 by the enactment of uniform legislation or otherwise. The 

 subjects discussed were forestry, orcharding, shellfisheries 

 and highways; and among the speakers were Hon. Gifford 

 Pinchot, Prof. John Craig of Cornell University, Dr. George 

 W. Field of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Commission, 

 Harold Parker, chairman Massachusetts Highway Commis- 

 sion, James H. Macdonald, State Highway Commissioner 



