FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 15 



talking about this very same question of membership. One 

 of the things that they tried to spring was to double the fee, 

 making it two dollars, instead of one. They got to talking 

 about it pretty seriously the last day of the meeting, and they 

 decided that they would put it the other end to. They decided 

 that they would let each fellow bring in two members. And 

 they asked how many there were that were willing to pledge 

 themselves to do that, and there were more than one hundred 

 that got right up there and then and promised to do it. They 

 raised over six hundred members right there in that room, in 

 the two days, and over a hundred arose and pledged them- 

 selves to put in an extra member, and to do all they could to 

 help push the membership up to a thousand this next year. 



Mr. Hale: Mr. President, the impression might go out, 

 from what our officers have said, that there was some trouble 

 in the Pomological Society about getting members. Of 

 course, we all know that that is not the fact. There is no 

 state in the Union, according to its population, that has a 

 pomological society as big as the Connecticut Pomological 

 Society, with- its 580 odd paid members. We want more, 

 but we can not afford to have the impression go abroad that 

 there is any trouble. The great Western New York society, 

 that has been in existence for fifty years, and located in the 

 center of the greatest fruit growing region in America, has 

 not a membership as large in proportion to population, even 

 though they have been at work for fifty years, as this organ- 

 ization here in Connecticut, which has only been in existence 

 fourteen years. We are better oiT by a good deal in point of 

 membership, in proportion to population. I say this, Mr. 

 President, because I do not want to have any stories go out 

 that there is any trouble about our membership, \^'e do not 

 want to have the newspapers print any stories to the efifect 

 that there is any lack of interest about the matter of mem- 

 bership. 



The President: That is the fact, just as Mr. Hale states 

 it. There is no state in the Union that has got as large a 

 number of members in its pomological society, in proportion 

 to the population of the state, as Connecticut. Some of the 



